The Barbell Guide to Mentorship — A Game-Changing Strategy for Creative Leaders & Innovators #351
Friday, March 28, 2025 • Duration 05:34
The Barbell Guide to Mentorship — A Game-Changing Strategy for Creative Leaders & Innovators #351
In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, global keynote speaker and creativity expert James Taylor shares a powerful new framework for mentoring in the modern workplace.
Titled “The Barbell Guide to Creative Mentoring,” James explores how true innovation doesn’t just come from learning from those ahead of us—but also from those just starting out. Drawing inspiration from a recent keynote he delivered in Dubai to tech leaders at duTech, he unpacks how combining traditional mentors with reverse mentors can unlock fresh thinking, challenge assumptions, and supercharge creative problem-solving.
Whether you’re a leader, innovator, or someone passionate about personal growth, this episode offers a game-changing approach to building mentorship relationships that spark real transformation.
Tune in now and ask yourself: Are you balancing your barbell?
🎙️ Top 5 Soundbites:
1. “Most people look for mentors ahead of them—but the real creative breakthroughs often come from those just starting out.”
2. “To find balance in mentoring, you need weight on both sides of the barbell: one from experience, and one from fresh perspective.”
3. “Reverse mentoring isn’t about giving—it’s about receiving insights that challenge your assumptions and spark innovation.”
4. “Their questions may seem naïve—but sometimes it’s the simplest question that unlocks the biggest shift in your thinking.”
5. “If you want to future-proof your creativity, listen to someone who hasn’t been conditioned by how things have always been done.”
Mentorship is a two-way street. True creative growth comes from having both a traditional mentor and a reverse mentor—someone younger or less experienced who brings a fresh lens to your thinking.
Reverse mentoring sparks innovation. Younger voices challenge your assumptions, expose blind spots, and help you stay ahead of change by offering unfiltered, unconventional ideas.
Creative insights can come from anywhere. Some of the most valuable lessons don’t come from the top, but from those just entering the game—people who see possibilities without limitations.
Leadership is about balance. Great leaders develop talent below them while staying open to being challenged by those same individuals. That’s where growth happens.
Action fuels transformation. James challenges listeners to set up a 30-minute reverse mentoring session—and to capture one insight that shifts their perspective. That small step can lead to big creative leaps.
In his upcoming book, James Taylor delves into the transformative concept of SuperCreativity™—the art of amplifying your creative potential through collaboration with both humans and machines. Drawing from his experiences speaking in over 30 countries, James combines compelling stories, case studies, and practical strategies to help readers unlock innovation and harness the power of AI-driven tools. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their creativity and thrive in the modern age of human-machine collaboration.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
Hi, it’s James Taylor here, and welcome to another episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast. Now, last month, I had the incredible opportunity to deliver a keynote in Dubai for duTech, a company at the forefront of Hyperscale Data Centers, Cybersecurity, IoT, and Cloud services. As I spoke to their leaders about the future of innovation, one concept that really resonated with them was the power of mentorship—not just as a way to develop talent but as a driver of creative thinking and problem-solving in organizations.
And today, I want to share that idea with you. It’s something I call ‘The Barbell Guide to Creative Mentoring.’ And it could just change the way you think about mentorship forever.
If you’ve ever lifted a barbell in the gym, you’ll know that to create balance, you need weight on both sides. And that’s exactly how I think about mentorship. Most leaders understand the value of having a mentor—someone older, more experienced, someone who’s been where they are now and can offer guidance when they face those career-defining decisions. This mentor acts like a sounding board, helping you navigate challenges with the wisdom that only experience can provide. They’ve been in the trenches, they’ve made the mistakes, and they can help you avoid the pitfalls.
But here’s where many people stop. They focus only on having that one mentor who’s ahead of them, but they forget the other side of the barbell. And that’s where things get interesting.
Why You Need a ‘Reverse Mentor’ Confucius once said, “Respect those younger than yourself.” And I think he was onto something. If you really want to supercharge your creativity and stay ahead of the curve, you also need to have a mentee—but not just any mentee. You need someone younger or less experienced than you, someone who sees the world through fresh eyes and isn’t tied down by ‘how things have always been done.’
At first, it might feel like you’re mentoring them, passing on your knowledge, guiding them in their career. But here’s the secret: in the process, they start mentoring you. Their questions—sometimes naïve, sometimes surprising—can challenge your assumptions, expose your blind spots, and help you see opportunities you might have otherwise missed. They bring fresh perspectives, energy, and ideas that can shake up your thinking in the best possible way.
I’ve personally experienced this time and again. Some of the best insights I’ve gained in my career have come not from the seasoned experts but from those just starting out. Their curiosity and willingness to question ‘the way things are’ help me stay sharp and innovative.
The Reverse Mentor Challenge So, here’s my challenge for you:
Identify someone younger or less experienced in your industry or organization. This could be a junior colleague, a recent graduate, or even someone outside your usual network.
Set up a 30-minute conversation, but instead of you giving advice, flip it around. Ask them about their thoughts on your industry, how they see the future, what they think could be done differently.
Capture at least one insight from that conversation that shifts your perspective. And I promise you, there will be one.
Closing Thoughts So, the question I leave you with today is this: Are you balancing your barbell? Do you have a mentor who can offer guidance from experience? And do you have a mentee who challenges your thinking and helps you see the world in a new way?
Great leaders—and great creative thinkers—do both. Because when you have weight on both sides of the barbell, that’s when you find balance. And that’s when the real innovation happens.
If you take on this challenge, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a message on LinkedIn or tag me on social media with your biggest insight. Let’s build more creative pairs and drive innovation together.
Until next time, keep learning, keep creating, and keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
Is AI Headed for a Catastrophic “Chernobyl Moment”?
In this video, we explore one of the most urgent questions of our time: Will AI have its own catastrophic failure—an event so disruptive that it reshapes society overnight?
Drawing parallels between the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, this video breaks down the warning signs of unchecked AI development, the potential for large-scale failures, and the critical steps needed to prevent disaster.
From autonomous warfare and financial meltdowns to deepfake-driven misinformation, we’ll dive into the risks—and more importantly, the solutions—that can help us build AI responsibly.
🚀 Will AI lead to disaster, or can we harness its power for good? Watch now, engage in the conversation, and let’s shape the future of AI together.
🎙️ Top 5 Soundbites:
1️⃣ “Will AI have its own Chernobyl moment? A single flaw, an unchecked system—one mistake that changes everything.”
2️⃣ “History has shown us: when technology evolves faster than our ability to control it, disaster isn’t just possible… it’s inevitable.”
3️⃣ “AI doesn’t ask ‘should we?’ It only asks ‘can we?’ And that’s where the real danger lies.”
5️⃣ “AI can either be our greatest tool for progress—or the biggest disaster we’ve ever created. The choice is ours.”
Apple Podcast
Takeaways
Will AI Have Its Chernobyl Moment?In December 2021 I stood in the ghost town of Pripyat, Ukraine. Just the day before, I had delivered a keynote in Kyiv on AI and innovation. But there, walking through abandoned hospitals and empty apartments, I was reminded of a simple truth:AI is advancing at an insane speed. Here’s what’s already happening:Let’s talk worst-case scenarios. What does an AI catastrophe actually look like?And yet… I am more excited about AI than ever before.So, what do we do to keep AI from going off the rails?Standing in Chernobyl, I saw firsthand what happens when we ignore the risks of powerful technology.
Sam Dixon of Womble Bond Dickinson, The Evolving Role of Lawyers in the AI Era #341
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 • Duration 33:01
Sam Dixon of Womble Bond Dickinson, The Evolving Role of Lawyers in the AI Era #341
Summary
Sam Dixon, Chief Innovation Officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, discusses the role of AI in the legal profession and the challenges of driving innovation in a traditional industry. He shares his journey from online retail to law and how he became involved in innovation. Dixon explains the different applications of AI in the legal sector, such as document automation and machine learning for document review. He also discusses the buy vs. build argument and the potential impact of AI on pricing and billing in law firms. Dixon emphasizes the importance of developing social intelligence and complex problem-solving skills to remain relevant in the evolving legal landscape.
Sound Bites
“Generative AI is able to do a lot of that work without the need for lots and lots of examples.”
“The key for me is creating that culture of innovation where it is part of the conversation and where people are enabled to suggest ideas and implement ideas.”
“I don’t think lawyers need to be coders. I mean, query in the modern world of low and no code, how much coders need to be coders?”
Annalisa Parent helps experts and business owners to write, publish and SELL client magnet books to MASSIVELY scale their brands and businesses. She is the founder of Date with the Muse and co-founder of Laurel Elite Books, the later offering full-service publishing. Annalisa writes for many local, national, and international publications and been featured on Huffington Post Live as well CBS, Associated Press and Korean Broadcast Systems. She believes in taking the writing craft seriously without taking herself too seriously, and attempts to heed the wisdom of the ancient Roman poet Horace who said: “Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It’s good to be silly at the right moment.”
James Taylor Interviews Annalisa Parent and they talked about Taking Your Book From Idea To Sold
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at . Enjoy this episode.
How To Avoid Overwhelm
Friday, October 9, 2020 • Duration 05:28
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How To Avoid Overwhelm
Ever feel overwhelmed by life? Are you overloaded with all the tasks on your to-do list? Do the waves of new projects and ideas sometimes engulf you? Let’s talk about how to avoid overwhelm.
The writer Paulo Coelho once said that “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Quick Braindump
Ever feel overwhelmed by life? Are you overloaded with all the tasks on your to-do list? Do the waves of new projects and ideas sometimes engulf you? Let’s talk about how to avoid overwhelm.
The writer Paulo Coelho once said that “Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.”
When it feels like everything is happening at once it is easy to become overwhelmed. A good first step is to do a quick braindump and get everything out of your head onto the page. This helps us see the edges.
Paralysis By Analysis
‘Man’s Search For Meaning’
Vestigia nulla retrorsum!
CL281: Self-Publishing Ebooks With Smashwords
Tuesday, October 6, 2020 • Duration 32:49
Self-Publishing Ebooks With Smashwords
Mark Coker is the CEO of Smashwords, a free ebook publishing and distribution platform and the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks. Smashwords makes it fast, free and easy for authors and publishers to distribute ebooks to the world's largest ebook retailers and library ebook platforms. The Wall Street Journal named Mark as one of the “Eight Stars of Self-Publishing” and it’s my pleasure to welcome him onto the summit today.
James Taylor Interviews Mark Coker and they talked about Self-Publishing Ebooks With Smashwords
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at . Enjoy this episode.
Creative Thinking vs Critical Thinking
Thursday, October 1, 2020 • Duration 05:28
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Creative Thinking vs Critical Thinking
What’s the difference between creative thinking vs critical thinking?
You can think of them as complementary skills which you use as different stages when trying to solve a problem or forming a judgment about something.
Critical thinking is the ability to clearly and logically consider information that is presented to us.
Creative thinking is about generating new, novel, or useful ideas.
The great innovators combine critical thinking and creative thinking. Old world perspectives with new world ideas.
Let’s look at how these different ways of thinking can connect with each other.
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Critical Thinking
Socratic method
Let’s imagine I want to create a new kind of book. We can begin by using our critical thinking skills to consider what a book actually is, it’s purpose, as well as a series of other questions. One simple yet effective critical thinking technique is the Socratic method named after the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. It is based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions or truths.
Creative Thinking
CL280: How To Find Time To Write Your Book
Tuesday, September 29, 2020 • Duration 29:55
How To Find Time To Write Your Book
Lloyd Luna is a productivity humorist and one of Asia’s most popular motivational speakers as well as being the author of ten books covering business and personal development. He is also a serial entrepreneur in the Philippines has started and built businesses including a speakers bureau and a book publisher.
James Taylor Interviews Lloyd Luna and they talked about How To Find Time To Write Your Book
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at . Enjoy this episode.
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work (And How To Develop Them)
Friday, September 25, 2020 • Duration 05:22
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work (And How To Develop Them)
Communication
Critical Thinking
Collaboration
Creativity
What skills should we be developing in order to survive and thrive this age of technological disruption? Which of our human abilities do we need to strengthen to best adapt to all the changes we are seeing in our work and personal lives?
Enjoy access to my free Creativity Blueprint training course where I help you unlock your creative potential, break down creative blocks and unleash your creative genius. Click here to gain access.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
\
FULL TRANSCRIPT
The 4 Skills Shaping The Future Of Work And How To Develop Them
Hi, it’s James Taylor here, innovation keynote speaker and creativity expert. Technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation are replacing many jobs and transforming how we live and work. So what are those essential soft skills to develop in order to stay relevant and agile as we fast-forward into this new future?
You see the pace of change we are all experiencing just now is only going to accelerate. Regardless if you’re a corporate CEO or an artist or a parent or all three, these times call for upskilling. It can feel both exciting and scary. You may be asking what skills do I need now and which will be even more important in the years ahead.
CL279: Top Marketing Tips For Book Launches
Tuesday, September 22, 2020 • Duration 49:03
Top Marketing Tips For Book Launches
Jane Anderson is an author and expert on Leadership and Communications. With over 20 years’ experience in Personal Branding, she has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego, Ikea, Rio Tinto, and Origin Energy and she is on the faculty in Thought Leaders Business School, mentoring some of Australia’s leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and in the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books including her latest “EXPERT to INFLUENCER: 12 Key Skills to Attract New Clients, Increase Sales and Leverage your Personal Brand to Become an Industry Leader.
James Taylor Interviews Jane Anderson and they talked about top marketing tips for book launches
AI’s “Chernobyl Moment” is a Real Risk – Just like Chernobyl was a failure of human oversight, AI’s rapid advancement without proper regulation could lead to catastrophic consequences.
AI is Already Showing Warning Signs – From job displacement and misinformation to financial crashes and autonomous weapons, AI is proving that unchecked growth comes with serious risks.
AI Lacks Ethics—Humans Must Provide Them – AI doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong; it only follows its programming. Ethical guidelines and human oversight are crucial to ensuring it benefits society.
The Future of AI is Not Just About Risk, But Opportunity – AI is already transforming healthcare, sustainability, and creativity. If we guide its development responsibly, it can be one of the greatest tools for progress.
Regulation, Transparency, and Human Control Are Non-Negotiable – To prevent AI’s “Chernobyl moment,” we need clear regulations, ethical guardrails, and human decision-making at critical points. The time to act is now.
In his upcoming book, James Taylor delves into the transformative concept of SuperCreativity™—the art of amplifying your creative potential through collaboration with both humans and machines. Drawing from his experiences speaking in over 30 countries, James combines compelling stories, case studies, and practical strategies to help readers unlock innovation and harness the power of AI-driven tools. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their creativity and thrive in the modern age of human-machine collaboration.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
A single mistake at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant triggered an explosion that changed the world.
Today, we’re on the brink of another technological revolution—Artificial Intelligence. AI is already transforming industries, solving complex problems, and unlocking human potential like never before.
But here’s the question no one wants to ask:
🚨 Will AI have its own Chernobyl moment? 🚨
Will a single error, an unforeseen flaw, or an unchecked system cause a disaster so big that it reshapes society overnight?
Because history has shown us—when technology evolves faster than our ability to control it, disaster isn’t just possible… it’s inevitable.
Chernobyl wasn’t just a failure of technology—it was a failure of human oversight, flawed design, and blind optimism.
And right now, we’re making the same mistakes with AI.
⚠️ AI could replace 300 million jobs – Goldman Sachs. ⚠️ AI misinformation spreads 10X faster than real news – MIT. ⚠️ AI-driven trading has already caused billion-dollar crashes – One faulty algorithm wiped out $440 million in 45 minutes.
And these are just the warning shots.
💥 Autonomous Warfare – AI drones making their own kill decisions. No human oversight. No off switch. 💥 Financial Meltdown – AI-powered trading triggers a stock market crash within minutes, outpacing human intervention. 💥 Total Information Collapse – Deepfake videos and AI-generated propaganda make it impossible to tell fact from fiction.
And the scariest part? AI doesn’t have ethics. It doesn’t ask “should we?” It only asks “can we?”
Because AI isn’t just about risk—it’s about opportunity.
🚀 AI is already accelerating medical breakthroughs, diagnosing diseases faster than human doctors. 🚀 AI is transforming sustainability, helping us tackle climate change with smarter energy solutions. 🚀 AI is enhancing human creativity, composing music, writing scripts, and unlocking new ways of thinking.
AI has the potential to make the world a better, brighter place—but only if we build it responsibly.
✅ We need transparency. No more black-box AI making decisions we don’t understand. ✅ We need ethical guardrails. Just like nuclear treaties, we need AI regulations that prevent dangerous developments. ✅ We need human oversight. AI should never be in full control of life-and-death decisions.
But AI doesn’t have to have its Chernobyl moment.
If we act now—if we stay curious, creative, and critical—AI can become the greatest tool for human progress we’ve ever created.
🚀 What do you think? Will AI lead to disaster, or will we use it to build a better future? Drop a comment below, let’s talk. And if this video made you think, hit like and subscribe—because the AI conversation is just getting started.
Generative AI is a major focus in the legal profession, with applications in document automation and machine learning for document review.
Law firms need to strike a balance between buying and building AI tools, leveraging existing software and integrating different systems.
The role of lawyers is evolving, and skills such as social intelligence and complex problem-solving are becoming increasingly important.
The pricing and billing models in law firms may need to adapt to incorporate the use of AI tools and technologies.
Creating a culture of innovation is crucial in law firms, where traditional mindsets and billable hours can hinder progress.
Sam is the Chief Innovation Officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson in the UK. He is also a practising lawyer in the firm’s restructuring team. His innovation journey started in online retail in the early 2000s and led him to law via a brief detour through the world of DJing.
Sam specializes in advising various stakeholders in relation to distressed businesses, charities and providers of public services; especially in scenarios with a continuity of supply requirement or which involve complex stakeholder management.
He is a qualified insolvency practitioner (non-practising) and has 18 months’ experience in a non-legal banking role within the business support team of a major clearing bank.
He has particular experience in the education, healthcare and charity sectors.
James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.
Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.
sam-dixon-the-supercreativity-podcast-with-james-taylor_scp341-sam-dixon-full-video.txt James Taylor (00:08) Sam Dixon is the chief innovation officer of law firm Womble Bond Dickinson in the United Kingdom. He is also a practicing lawyer in the firm’s restructuring team. His innovation journey started in online retail in the early 2000s and has led him to law via a brief detour through the world of DJing. And if you don’t know Womble Bond Dickinson, I’m gonna put my hand up here. They are a client of mine. I’ve spoken to them for a number of times before. I think they have about a thousand.
lawyers in the US and the UK and they cover lots of different areas of business as well. And we’re going to be taking a deep dive into the work that Sam and his team do around innovation, specifically in the legal profession. So Sam, welcome to the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Sam Dixon (00:50) Good afternoon, James. Thank you for having me.
James Taylor (00:52) So share with us just now what’s going on in your world, what currently has your focus at the moment?
Sam Dixon (00:57) Well, I think it would be very difficult to give an answer other than generative AI, to be honest with you. It’s stormed onto the scene. We’re working our way through the hype cycle, of course. And it’s keeping us all very, very busy, both in terms of what we can do right now with it, but also what the future trajectory is going to be and where we might end up.
James Taylor (01:18) And take, how did you get into this role? I mentioned that you’re obviously a practicing partner, you’re a solicitor, you do DJing as well. Tell us how this journey into the current role happened.
Sam Dixon (01:29) Well, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in doing things differently and innovation and in the use of tech. Going back to, you mentioned the online retail at the start of my journey. And essentially for me, that was working in an outdoor equipment retailer in a shop and then ended up taking over their mail order business, turning that into an online retail business in the relatively early days of online retail and doing things like using AdWords and a computer.
a different way to how anyone has used them before. So we were targeting essentially a product comparison approach that no one else was using at the time. And fast forward in, sorry, go on James.
James Taylor (02:07) I think, yeah, I was gonna say the move into the law. So you didn’t come initially from the legal profession then. You kind of, you were starting in e -commerce and retail first, and then you kind of, how did you find your way into the law?
Sam Dixon (02:22) Well, in some respects, in a relatively conventional route, in the bit of online retail, and then I was doing a law degree. Now, being honest with you, whilst I was doing a law degree, I was doing quite a lot of DJing and event promotion, and I didn’t apply for a training contract two years ahead of time in the way that people normally do, because frankly, I thought I was going to be traveling the world DJing. And as I went into my final year, I had a number of offers to work in various parts of the world as a DJ.
But in my final year, we did real legal work. And I ended up dealing with a multiple conspiracy to murder case, so some gangland stuff. And it was fascinating. And at the same time, the firm I’m currently with, which at the time was called Dickinson Dees, prior to a number of mergers, they approached the university I was at and said, do you have anyone who might be interested in starting a training contract in a few months’ time? So I went in and had a chat. And one of the icebreaker questions was, do you know?
tell us something interesting about your week last week. So I explained that I’d DJed for an artist called Chesney Hawkes. It turned out the head of graduate recruitment was a massive Chesney Hawkes fan, and the rest, as they say, is history.
James Taylor (03:37) So you went into, obviously, you started initially in the kind of legal side around criminal law. But my understanding is that one Bond Dickinson is known really for commercial law, and it’s that kind of world. And then you specifically, you focused on the restructuring side of things. So how did you get into that particular part of commercial law?
Sam Dixon (03:58) Absolutely, well as you say it’s a commercial law firm so the criminal side of things was just part of my university experience. As soon as I joined what’s now Umubon Dickinson it was commercial law from the start and I started off as a trainee like all lawyers do and I rotated around a few different seats and being honest I didn’t know an awful lot about restructuring. I didn’t know what to expect but as I was going into my final seat it was in the height of the recession.
And there weren’t necessarily the opportunities in other areas that I would have perhaps liked to have done. And so someone gave me the chance to go and work in the restructuring team. And it turns out it was a really good fit for me. So I qualified into restructuring and insolvency and spent a number of years learning the ropes and really enjoying the restructuring sector, helping to try and save businesses and that kind of thing. But over time, I saw there were a number of things that we were doing in restructuring, which
I think it’s probably fair to describe as a bit boring at times. James form -filling, doing the same precedence again and again that he didn’t necessarily feel was the best way of doing it. There must have been a better way. And that got me to start looking at document automation. Originally using things which with hindsight look like quite archaic technology now and borderline kind of coding. Whereas,
things have evolved and it’s got easier and easier to do. But that first time that I saw a suite of documents that are automated, where in the past it would have taken hours to produce it, to then be able to just go out to answer a few questions and it’s going to tell me what documents I need. And it’s going to produce them all for me with all the associated paperwork. This is just amazing. And it was that that really was the trigger point for me gradually over time becoming more and more involved in our innovation.
efforts across the firm.
James Taylor (05:53) I know with a lot of law firms I’ve worked with in the past, they initially got very excited about RPA, robotic process automation, taking some of those agreements, automating things to a certain extent. We’ve now moved from just doing that into obviously artificial intelligence and machine learning as well. When you’ve seen these technologies start to be applied in the work of law firms, where do you typically see it? Is it in document?
Is it being document management side? Is it looking at risk in relation to contracts? Is it helping lawyers draft agreements or something else?
Sam Dixon (06:31) So I think it depends on the particular technology. But if you’re talking about that document automation side of things, that’s the production of documents very clearly. When you look at machine learning though, that’s usually around something like a document review. So that might be a due diligence exercise. It might be someone wanting to understand their range of contracts, whether it complies with their policies in a particular area. They might be trying to understand the lease portfolio and wanting to extract various bits of information across that portfolio because,
they’ve inherited it from someone else, it perhaps doesn’t have the level of detail and structure that they need. And that original transition machine learning tools worked to a degree to deliver that task. And there has been some success on that front. I think where it gets really interesting is that generative AI is able to do a lot of that work without the need for lots and lots of examples.
and the proactive work to train the particular machine learning tool to look for particular points of interest.
James Taylor (07:41) Now your work obviously around innovation, a lot of law firms struggle around innovation because it’s traditionally the legal industry is one that’s focused on billable hours, your six minute increments or however long it is. And so everyone obviously partners associates very focused on those billable hours and to be able to take a step back and think actually, is there a better way of doing this or a smarter way, a more productive way of doing it? It’s often very difficult when people just focus on those billable hours. How did you…
to change the mindset within a firm, especially with those colleagues of yours who maybe said, we’ve been doing this for years, why do we have to change it?
Sam Dixon (08:20) I think you chose a great word at the start of that, James, which is traditional. And law is a very traditional sector. People have a very traditional mindset. What we’ve tried to do to get people to think a bit more differently and to try out some of this new stuff is, first of all, just to get it on their radar. Because if they don’t know about it, then they haven’t even got the option of trying to do things differently.
So we do things like our International Innovation Week, where we work with our colleagues in the US and where you’ve spoken before, to just tell people stories about innovation, give them that inspiration. It’s about making them want to get involved. And are you going to get absolutely everyone to take a more innovative approach? No, you’re not. With the best will in the world, that’s never going to happen. But you don’t know exactly who is receptive to it and who isn’t.
So the key for me is creating that culture of innovation where it is part of the conversation and where people are enabled to suggest ideas and implement ideas. So, sorry James.
James Taylor (09:30) No, I was just going to say, so take us through like an example of that. Let’s say you’re a partner in the restructuring part of the business and you’ve been doing something for a while and it works, it’s fine. But you’re thinking, listen, maybe I want to try using some of these AI tools and thinking about things in a more innovative way. What does that process look like? Is it lead often led by the partner? Is it led from the innovation lab within it? Is it led by an associate? Is it project managers?
How does it start to come together?
Sam Dixon (10:03) So we take a two tier approach to innovation, James. And what I’m talking about there is our starting point and the first tier of that two tier approach is what we call our self -service toolkit. So we’ve been focusing on trying to sort of leverage that experience across the whole business. So rather than having a team of people centrally who are the ones who innovate, the others.
We try to stay away from that and empower everyone to do differently what they know best, what they’re dealing with day in, day out. So the self -service toolkit is a series of pieces of software with training materials made available in a way which minimizes the need for central approval, be that cost approval or whatever else so that people can pick things up.
take ideas forward with the appropriate approvals from within their own teams so that ideas aren’t being duplicated and so that time isn’t being wasted when it should be applied on something else. But really empowering everyone to be able to take that forward. We do recognize though that some of what people want to do might be a bit more ambitious. And it might require a little bit of coding skill. It might require some admin.
access rights from an IT perspective, which with the best rule in the world, we’re not going to expect our lawyers to have. In my view, I don’t think lawyers need to be coders. I mean, query in the modern world of low and no code, how much coders need to be coders? But lawyers for me certainly don’t need to be. And therefore, we have the second tier, which is the complex automations. And that’s where you’re looking at potentially an end -to -end process.
with a lot of heavy automation in there and probably integrations between multiple different systems.
James Taylor (12:01) So let’s say on that then, let’s say you’re having all folks from different parts of the business say, we’ve got this problem, we think we could use, we would like to use AI to help us on this problem. Someone else sees an opportunity. How do you then kind of sort and sift all that, decide actually this is where we’re going to focus on? Is there strategic kind of pillars that you’re focused around? Will you only do projects where you think it could benefit across the whole firm rather than a particular department in the firm? How do you decide?
Sam Dixon (12:30) Well, I think it depends on what support is needed, James. I mean, the idea of the self -service toolkit is we don’t need to decide. The individual teams, for example, restructuring can say, right, well, we’ve got a sale agreement here, which we think will benefit from being automated. There’s a self -service tool available to let us do that. And we, as a restructuring team, can assess whether or not we want to use our own team resource in order to progress that.
So that’s one side of it, obviously on the complex automation side. There is a need for prioritization. And that’s done on a business case basis, as you probably expect. And so we listen to what teams want. And sometimes teams don’t necessarily know what they want. This is as much about a conversation as it is about anything else. And I’m currently touring all of our UK offices just talking to people.
floorwalking, having conversations around, right, well, what are your pain points? What are you trying to achieve? What is the most boring thing you’re doing, the most frustrating thing you’re doing? And where have you got to work around? Because that’s always a great example of an innovation opportunity is where someone’s currently trying to work around existing systems and processes. So we have those conversations. We then review the business cases and we work out where the best ROI is, frankly. And sometimes,
That’s where there is really well structured workflows that are high volume and it makes a lot of sense to put a lot of structure around that. But other times there might be things which could benefit a very broad part of the firm. And actually someone in one particular team has come up with an idea which is of much, much broader application. And then it’s not around that really well structured work necessarily. It might be.
around a particular aspect of a task or just something that everyone’s doing. Like for example, reviewing agreements in Word. There are aspects of that. One of the tools that we’ve put in the self -service toolkit recently, which has been really, really popular, is, it sounds like the simplest thing in the world, but essentially it’s a sidebar in Word that scans your Word document and it allows you, rather than…
jumping around the document back to definition tables and clause 12 .5 that’s referenced down here, it allows you to just double click on the work, the defined term, or double click on the relevant clause, and it pops up alongside you. So you don’t have that constant context switching and loss of focus. And it turns out that is something that is applicable to a really large part of the work that we do. And it’s saved an awful lot of time and to be frank, has probably improved consistency as well because…
even the best lawyers in the world get tired and sometimes miss things.
James Taylor (15:27) So how do you decide, and this is the thing I’m starting to see with some firms where they’re saying they’ve been using a lot of off the shelf products from different providers. Some that focus very much on the legal industry, others that are just more broad like the chat, GPTs of this world, for example. And then there’s those firms that say, actually, we are going to employ our own data scientists. We’re going to build our own models. We’re going to do that work as well, which is obviously more expensive and sometimes is not in the…
the usual field that a law firms would do. Have you made that, have you started coming up against that? Have you started thinking about that decision about, okay, when are we going to have to maybe think about starting to build our own things that will have basically be WombleBone Dickinson creative products?
Sam Dixon (16:12) The buy v build argument is something that’s been going on in the legal sector for a long, long time. And I’m largely still of the mindset that firms that specialize in developing software, be that for legal tech or otherwise, are probably going to win and probably going to produce something better than we can. It’s the old adage of keeping the main thing the main thing, isn’t it? What we do is provide legal services. We don’t develop software.
Where we really have the advantage is in using that software, in integrating different pieces of software together using APIs where that might not have been done previously. And that’s where the edge is. However, I do think there’s a bit of a blurring of the line now between buy and build, because how you’re using some of these tools increasingly starts to look like building rather than buying. So.
I mean, you reference people building their own models. Personally, I think the idea of someone building their own large language model as a law firm is bonkers. The scale that is required and the broad capability that existing models have, it just doesn’t make sense to me for someone to build their own model. But you can go and use Microsoft Azure Studio, OpenAI Studio, to develop your own.
GenAI powered chatbots. And that’s something that we have done. Now is that buy, is that build? We’ve created the system messages, we’ve played around with the p -values, the k -values, the temperature, we’ve put the data set into it. I don’t know whether it’s buy or build in that situation where we bought in a tool and then we’ve used it to build a GenAI chatbot. And frankly, I guess it doesn’t really matter which side of the line that falls in.
And we’ve started relatively simple and there’s an ambition to build out from there. So what we’ve built so far, we’re calling iWomble. And iWomble currently looks over our 70 something policies and procedures and answers plain English questions about them. In line with our AI policy, people still need to verify the answers. They can’t completely rely on what’s provided, but we’ve found, passed over a relatively small data set, what we’ve
built, bought, is really quite accurate. And people are finding it far, far easier to get to the right answers, especially when some questions are answered across multiple policies. And it brings them all together, gives them an answer like if I asked you the question and you knew all of our policies, the kind of answer that you would give together with citations so that people can go and check them. And then that saved a lot of time. And due course, we’ll build that out on a modular basis to look at all sorts of other areas of the business as well.
James Taylor (19:12) If I was a client, one question is going to be coming up in my head just now. Okay, when I get my bill and I have partner X, 20 hours, a junior associate X amount of hours, paralegal X amount of hours, where does the AI, where does AI Womble AI, AI Womble live in that? Are you going to bill that as a separate kind of product service within it, or are you just seeing this as something that just helps augment the…
the folks that actually already work in your firm.
Sam Dixon (19:45) I think it’s still quite fluid at the moment, to be honest with you, James. I think the whole sector is trying to work out how generative AI is going to impact pricing. For me, currently, it’s a question of looking at things on a case -by -case basis. We are still, I believe, at a relatively early stage in gen AI being applied to law. So there are a number of major vendors who are building gen AI solutions onto existing products. And the roadmap for those is sort of
during the course of this year. So a lot of the legal specific benefit is still to be realized. When you look at something like iWamble, for example, those questions around policies and procedures, clients are benefiting there because some of those policy questions will be around how a particular process works. And we’re making sure that people get to the right answer quickly. Now, some of that probably wasn’t time that was.
was ever charged to clients in the first place because it’s our own internal policies. Some of it, depending on the nature, might well be. So there’s some savings and efficiencies there which would just be passed on. The more general potential for this around document review and things like that will be discussed on a case -by -case basis. So it might be that clients are given the option, for example. It might be, look, we’ve got this new tool.
We can do it this way, and we can agree a fixed price of x. Or if you prefer, we can do it a different way. And it’ll be charged based on time, but those rates might reflect, for example, the overhead cost of the AI. So there’s different ways of looking at it. Whether we’ll get to a place where there’s a technology charge.
that sits on files alongside time, for example. That might be one route that the industry goes. But I know that when other industries have tried that, there’s been some pushback there. So I think that could be challenging. One thing that could well happen, James, and as I say, this is all really fluid at the moment, it might well be that as with other overheads, essentially, chargeout rates are adjusted.
to reflect the fact that work is being done more efficiently, but there’s a big investment cost in these tools in the first place. So it could be that it’s offset that way, but time will tell.
James Taylor (22:08) Yeah, I was I was thinking we had one of our other guests we’ve had on the the season is Sir David, Professor Sir David Allman, who was the formerly head of GCHQ. And so what with all the intelligence services, one stat he shared was of the public of publicly indexed information is out there, I when you’re on Google or Yahoo, wherever, that is only 0 .3 % of information exists, because most information exists on intranets or
dark web or places that the general public do not have access to as well. And one thing I was wondering there was, were some of these larger clients that you might have where you say, listen, we can maybe do a, almost a quick pro -crop because AI, we need data to train it on. And if there’s some way that we can obviously, it needs to data security and all the things and anonymize and all the things you would normally have, but there’s almost a bit of a competitive advantage there because some of your clients who have large data sets,
large amounts of information going back many, many years, that’s amazing information to train an AI on.
Sam Dixon (23:14) It is, and I’m sure over time we will see more and more licensing style deals to get access to content that isn’t indexed, like the Financial Times announced last week or the week before. I think for a law firm, it’s really, really challenging because you’ve got that duty of confidentiality, you’ve got all the information security requirements, you’ve got all the data protection requirements, and…
Again, I guess it goes back to keeping the main thing, the main thing. To what extent do we want to be distracting from what we do best by having conversations with clients around potentially acquiring their data for a different purpose to how we normally use it, which is essentially what we will be talking about. And I don’t know.
Call me traditional James, call me someone who’s been trained as a lawyer, but it just makes me inherently nervous and I wonder if actually the way that that will progress is for the really big players to approach some of the big multinationals and do licensing deals with them in the same way as they have done with the FT rather than trying to partner with law firms who leverage it.
James Taylor (24:28) Yeah, it’s almost a little bit like the within the UK with the NHS data that’s been anonymized. So and just different companies that have access to that so that they can run models and do, you know, use AI assay models and things to kind of test but individuals information is not necessarily known by that AI. I’m interested, you know, with your your other side of view, which is the DJ, which we’ve come to just now. I mean, the world of music is being
changed so fast just now because of AI, especially generative AI. I was playing with something for an event I’m doing in London later this week, a tool called Suno AI. I don’t know whether you’ve been playing with it at all where you can just write in some ideas for some lyrics, give it the kind of theme that you, the kind of style of music you want to do, and it will do you a track. And it sends this real sounding audio, real sounding vocals, real sounding everything. And it’s great. It’s good for getting a first idea. And some of them are quite funny as well.
Are there any things that you’ve seen within the music space and your background as a DJ where you’re kind of thinking, actually, I’m starting to see this now within the legal profession, perhaps in terms of how the job is changing or how we’re going to have to take a certain approach or a certain position in terms of how we work with AI?
Sam Dixon (25:47) Well, I think there are going to be parallels across lots and lots of different sectors. And I think if you look at how DJing has evolved over time, I started in the CDJ era. So just after vinyl, the early days of CDs being the medium of choice, simply because you could carry more of them. But you were still actually mixing. You were still exercising a degree of skill over time.
And I suspect there’s lots of modern DJs who would be screaming the, their radios right now, but over time, technology and earlier forms of AI have increasingly been able to say, right, well, this is this many beats per minute. That’s that many beats per minute. and what we can do is marry that up and we can line up. So when you, when you drop the one track over the other, actually you’re slightly off in your timing and therefore I’m going to adjust it for you and make it play. So what that’s done over time is level the playing field a bit.
and allow people to, more people to access that particular profession and to perform at a standard that they weren’t previously able to perform. And I suspect that generative AI might have a similar levelling approach for certain bits of legal work going forwards. And the key will then be, well, what skills are the ones that really add the value?
when you get to that place. And for me, when you look at what’s going to be left as AI advances, and who knows when we’ll get to the end game on that. But it’s going to be things like the social intelligence and that complex problem solving in a complicated set of circumstances. And that’s where I think lawyers need to be really focused on developing those skills and making sure they remain relevant. And the other thing is you’ve got to accept
that the world will change and you can’t fight against that. It’s better to be part of that change and to embrace it and to accept that the skills that you needed before are different to the skills that are needed now. I mean, handwriting is a lot less relevant in the role of the modern lawyer than it used to be, James. I think many lawyers would argue with that. So it’s just another step in the evolution.
James Taylor (28:13) guess also, you got a front row seat of this in terms of all those young trainees are coming in young and older trainees, you know, people are going to university later in life. But some of the younger trainees who have come up being that first generation who have been using chat GPT for in their exams, for example, in different ways, they’re now coming into your firm saying, Hey, I was able to use this when I was at university studying for my law degree, why can I not have access to these same tools in a firm? So you’re kind of you’re coming.
You’re going to be coming up against that as well. Quickfire questions as we start to finish up here as well. Is there a quote or a line or statement that you kind of live by that you often kind of is kind of your, is your kind of compass in life in some way?
Sam Dixon (29:06) I’m not sure that there’s any one statement to be honest with you James.
I mean, I was once mocked roundly and I suspect I’m about to be again, but I will do it because it’s the answer to the question, I guess. I was once stopped and interviewed by someone from Radio Lancashire and asked exactly the same question, essentially. And as a 16 -year -old, I said, keep it smooth. That was my response. And I guess as cringe -worthy as that was and as much abuse as I received from…
James Taylor (29:34) Keep it smooth. Keep it smooth.
Sam Dixon (29:43) friends at the time for saying that. I think there is a certain truth in just staying calm and objectively assessing problems in order to properly work out what an innovative solution to that problem is, which is my attempt at a neat segue into your next question.
James Taylor (30:04) And then, so on that, we’ve been talking about just having a sense of perspective on things and assessing in that way as well. Are there any tools that you use or apps that you use you find are very useful in the kind of work that you do? We’ve mentioned obviously the Chat GPT and different Microsoft tools and things. Are there any that you particularly think, I don’t think I can live without this now?
Sam Dixon (30:31) Well, I think it’s probably more use case for one of the tools we’ve touched on rather than anything else. And that is generative AI for me has become a really useful sounding board. It’s essentially a coach for me. So I might draft a new idea, a new element of our strategy, and then say to it, right, act as our managing partner and ask.
what questions would you ask about this documentation? Critique this for me. And I use that on an iterative basis to try and anticipate some of the things that people might ask and some of the challenge that might be put back against a particular idea.
James Taylor (31:12) I use a very similar thing I call virtual masterminds where I’ll put in an idea for a project or a business plan that we have, and then I’ll give it six people that I respect who have very different perspectives on business and things. And I’ll say, okay, find all the flaws on this. And it’s fascinating because you get to see from different perspectives and then we kind of do the human bit, which we kind of triangulate all of that and say, okay, that’s fine. Now that I know how Elon would approach it or how Warren Buffett would approach it.
now I need to think like, okay, how would Sam Dixon approach it? What would we do? What about books? Are there any books that you can recommend to our listeners, maybe around AI or the future in some way?
Sam Dixon (31:56) Well, Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, James, is a fascinating read about AI and about, well, I would guess the potential doomsday scenarios that we might all face. But in approaching those doomsday scenarios, you do get a reasonably good feel for the progression of AI over time and a good grounding in what AI is.
James Taylor (32:24) And if people want to connect with you to learn more about Womble Bond Dickinson, more about the firm, what’s the best place for them to go and do that?
Sam Dixon (32:31) Well, you can find me on LinkedIn or on X, I am at Innovation in Law.
James Taylor (32:38) Sam Dixon, Chief Innovation Officer of Law firm 1 with Womble Bond Dickinson Thank you so much for being a guest on the SuperCreativity Podcast.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey there, it's James Taylor, and I'm delighted to welcome on to the summit today. Annalisa Parent. Annalisa parent helps experts and business owners to write publish and sell client magnet books to massively scale their brands and businesses. She is the founder of date with Muse and co founder of laurel elite books, the latter offering full service publishing. And Lisa writes for many local national and international publications and has been featured on Huffington Post live as well as CBS Associated Press and Korean broadcast systems. She believes in taking the writing craft seriously without taking herself too seriously. And attempts to heat the wisdom of the ancient Roman poet Horace who said mix a little foolishness with your prudence, it's good to be silly at the right moment. What a great thing to live by. So thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. Annalisa.
Annalisa Parent Thank you so much for having me, James. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's going on in your world just now.
Annalisa Parent Yes, so a lot going on over at Laurel elite books. In addition to helping experts to publish their client magnet books I've been speaking with organizations about clarity in their written communications, so newsletters, internal emails, working a lot around those factors of clarity, and audience, which are really important in writing.
James Taylor So you mentioned that what client magnet books described to be what is it was a client magnet books, how would they differ from any other type of book that someone might be writing.
Annalisa Parent So in my mind, a client magnet book is a book that will start a conversation with your ideal client, so that by the time they're finished with chapter one, they're certainly going to know who you are, what you stand for, and how you can help them to solve their unique problem, what your unique solution is. And certainly by the end of that book, if they're the right fit for what you offer, and how you offer it, that conversation has moved forward exponentially. By the last page, they're ready to get on a call with you talk with you about how you can help them to solve their problem.
James Taylor And you work with lots of different types of writers obviously, a lot of nonfiction writers people are using the books as you say, to bring in potential custom to their business build their brands, I'm wondering is any particular type of book that you find works better for those those client magnet books and we something see the the kind of more storytelling, I'm thinking like the almost like the E myth revisited, where they use kind of like fictional almost like narrative that's kind of going on there. And then you have the more like, here's what to do the ABC of something. And then you have like lots of things in between. What books do you find tend to work best when it comes to writing these very specific more kind of client magnet books,
Annalisa Parent you know, you're talking about different styles and the degree to which story is used. And one of my favorite business gurus out there, although he balks at the term guru, Bob Berg says story sells, and it does, in fact, sell and for those of you who have read any of the books in the go giver series, which he co authors, you know, he's using a parable to get his business message across. And so that's on the far extreme of how we can use story to sell. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have a really straightforward, informative, sort of our classic non fiction book. I would say that the ideal expert book is going to fall smack dab in the middle of those two things. certainly want to be giving some information, some helpful information. And there will be a story included. And so some people want to because they're good at or they like to fictionalize or create a parable that that is woven throughout, we might see an ideal client make progress through the book, for example. Or, more simply put, we can include anecdotes of people who have gone through our programs, people we've helped who have been successful, to really show what it can look like to start in one place, and, and in another after working with us. So to summarize, it's really a perfect blend of both story and telling to really get that reader engaged. But we're programmed for story that's from a neuroscientific standpoint. So certainly, getting those stories in there is engaging. And it's also helpful for the illustration for the client to see what it is that you do, and how you can do it. And what that can look like,
James Taylor after I mean, I think I just read two books recently, and one with one customer topic, really the one kind of marketing, one book was heavy research driven was written by a very good academic, but the end of it, I felt, I felt, okay, I know this information, but like, what do I do with it, there was no like, no, there's no kind of how to nothing in terms of actionable and, and I felt the book was moved for that. And then the other book I read, use a parable of a guy who was it was almost a little bit of that kind of E myth type of format, where it was a story of a guy who had a bike shop, and he was looking to improve his bike shop. And then there was a cyclist used to come in who was a very successful businessman who always helps it, these are the seven things in your business that you need to focus on. And as I and it was a very good base, and much more simple book, but very well ordered, well structured, well thought out. And, and I think now of the books that I've won, I've suggested more often is that second one is the one that weaves a story in, but there's very strong kind of actionable goals. And and it's easy for me to say to someone, or I've just read this book, and it's about such and such, and it covers such as it was much easier for me to do that one rather than the top of the academic, which I guess goes to your point of having that that blend.
Annalisa Parent Yeah, you know, in the one case, you read a book that was too heavy on theory, you know, putting on my professor hat, I certainly have lived in academia, and I enjoy a good theoretical discussion as much as any other professor. But there's a time and a place for that. And so if we're looking to do something, to implement something, we do need those actionable steps. And showing those to your potential client shows that you know, your stuff, you know how to do this, you know how to solve this problem.
James Taylor Now you work with lots of experts, people who, wherever their field is they've quite all this knowledge, expertise, they may be well known in their particular field, but not known more generally. What was some of the challenges or mistakes that you see them make early on when they then look to take that, all that knowledge or that years of experience from their head, and put it into book forms in order to bring in clients and help build their brand?
Annalisa Parent Yeah, so I would say the top two mistakes that I see are the wrong kind of book, or expecting a book to do too much. So the wrong kind of book, people want a shortcut. And so they create sort of like these quote, collections, or even worse, they throw together all of their blog entries, and none of them really go together. And I've heard that there are people coaching that out there, don't listen to them. It doesn't work. You know, because what you want is a conversation. And, you know, if I hung out with you at the cocktail party, James, and I was like an Abe Lincoln said, and then Ben Franklin said, you would just think that I was weird, and we would not be having a GM season. So that doesn't work to start a conversation. That's really our goal is how do we get them into a conversation. And then the second point is, you know, there may be many, many, many books in you. And people, when they come to their first book, they say, Oh, I know a lot about a and then sometimes I help people be and then there's one time I help person was See, and they think they need to include every single thing that they know, in that one book. And if that feels or sounds overwhelming it is. And so you know, streamlining that information, so that we can connect on one conversation. That makes sense. So if we go back to that cocktail party analogy, if I'm standing next to you with my pinky up in my hand on the stem, and I say, you know, I like basketball, and I like baseball, and sometimes I ski and I like I've given you way too much information. If I just say you know, I went skiing last weekend, well then we can have a conversation about you know, do you ski Do you like skiing, where do you ski all of those things, versus too much information. So finding that perfect topic, and What the chronology will be of what's book one? What's your most important message to be the four rudder? And then how do you follow that up with Book Two, Book Three, and so on. So that you can continue that conversation with potential clients. Because those people who really love you and love book one, are going to be eager for book two.
James Taylor So when you're working with authors, you actually sit down with them, and they have all these ideas, and you actually almost can plan out what their book one, Book Two, Book Three, even if even if you're not completely sure, you know, full details of book two and Book Three, but you've got the big, you know, buckets. So this is what it goes into. I'm wondering, when you've kind of mapped out a little bit of a roadmap for them of a couple of books, so that helps them feel a bit more relaxed. I don't have to put everything in this book one. Coming back to book one, though, how do you start to outline it, you're even on if you just take one of those three things you might be doing? See, okay, this is the thing we're gonna This is the kind of book we're gonna write. How do you start to kind of get your hands around a book, you know how to do to decide what the book is going to do? Who's going to who's going to serve?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So I would say that 90% of the people who come to us would say, I'm not a writer, but I want to write a book. So they're not coming from, you know, MFA programs, learning how to write, they might have even hated writing when they were in school. And so our programs are specifically targeted to help those kind of people to answer those kinds of questions. Right? Where do I even start? With all of this? What stories do I include? Because those are really important questions to be asking. So these people are asking all of the right questions. And we're helping them to find the right answers. And one of the ways that we do that James, is to back it up, because some people sort of put the cart before the horse, and they think that they just need a book. But it's not a book. It's a scaling tool. And it can't be a scaling tool, unless we've got a strategy. So I, there are two people who come to me, they either say I've got a book, and I don't know where to start, or I already wrote a book, and it's not selling, what do I do now? So when we start with people at the idea stage, we're taking people not just through how do I write a book? How do I organize my ideas? Those are all important things, of course, but they're more directly tied to the marketing strategy that we're going to implement, so that that message gets into the hands of the people who need it. So we're answering all of those questions at once. Because really, it's the same question, who's the audience for my book is who's the audience for my business? Same avatar? So how are we going to target that person, not only with the book, but how are we going to get that book into that person's hands? What about this book is going to be appealing? So we're backing it up way, even before we're putting words on a page? Because what we're really creating is a strategy, the strategy that is book specific and the strategy that is business specific. And on the Venn diagram, there's a lot of overlap there. But we need a lot of clarity around what we want this book to do for the author. And that's an important question to be asking, as well, when we consider what goes in Book One, what goes in Book Two, what goes in Book Three, we're thinking about the purpose of those books, they might be a slightly different arm of the strategy, in the sense that, you know, you might put out Facebook ads, and you might put out Twitter ads, those are both social media ads, but your targeting might be a little different. And your strategy might be a little different. We need to get into the intricacies of all of those details so that we can put together a solid scaling tool that we call a book.
James Taylor And in that conversation as you start going in identifying the avatar, what the overall strategy is, I'm guessing the conversation comes up relatively early from the author saying, should I be finding a traditional publisher and getting a book deal? Should I be independently publishing with a with an independent publisher or a hybrid model? What, you know, where should I be going? How do you approach that conversation?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So that's a question that a lot of people have. And the good news for entrepreneurs, coaches consultants out there is that self publishing or hybrid publishing work really well, in this particular genre? If you told me you wanted to write a mystery novel, that would be a very different conversation, but sales are really good in those two venues. Now, I'm a little biased in this question, because I own and operate a publishing company that takes you from idea to sold so we're publishing that book for our clients. And that's really great that we take them from I have an idea what do I do all the way through, I have a book in my hands and I know how to sell it, because we get the consistency of branding and the consistency of the marketing strategy and the consistency of having a team behind you. So I'm a little biased and thinking that that's the very best way to do it, because that's how I do it. And because a lot of those people that I said those 50% of the people who come to me and say, I wrote a book, but it's not selling are people who just slapped it up on Amazon and expected the world to flock to them, if you build it, they'll come without any strategy to make that happen. So,
James Taylor so it's almost like, it's almost like a continuum there. Like with traditional publishers, at one end, absolutely self published, we just say, Listen, I just write it, I'm just gonna throw it up onto Amazon. And then you've got this, this hybrid somewhere in the middle, which is hopefully taking the best part of traditional publishing, giving, you know, giving you access, and also helping you through that process, almost like in music, and that can ANR process the, the the editing process, but at the same time, it gives you enough speed and flexibility which you might be lacking with a traditional publisher.
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. I think that you hit the nail on the head right there, James. And if I can just send a word of caution out there. I mean, obviously, I think I'm the best solution for that out there. But I recognize that I am not the only publisher out there offering this. So people say well, how do I choose like, what's the best way to choose and my one word of caution is, is this, look for the results that you want for your book. So I work really well with people who want to put a quality message about a quality solution into the hands of their ideal client, and sell actual books for money. So there are a lot of publishers out there. And this like you're going to hear my ire raise, because this infuriates my sensibilities, who promise you an Amazon bestseller. And the way that they do this is they create an arbitrary category, you know, books with orange covers, and suddenly, you've sold two books, and you're the best seller in the books with orange covers category, hooray, but you only sold two books, but you get to call yourself a quote unquote best seller, you only sold two books. So that's not a goal that I think is important. For me, that's like the perfect attendance award that you got in the third grade, it's not getting you anything, what I want from my authors, that is that they actually sell books, not that they sell two books, so they can call themselves a best seller. So that's just a word of caution. Now, there may be some listeners out there who saying no, I really want to have that sticker to put on the front of my book. And that's important to me. And that's, that's fine, but it's not actually selling you any books.
James Taylor So like there's hybrid publishers, then there, then all of the same flavor that they get labeled with hybrid publisher, but that can range from quite hands off styles of publishers to something much more. I mean, the I know, the type of publishing you work with, you're also working a lot on that, that almost like coaching process, there's kind of going on there as well. And obviously, then the editing and, and all the publishing and then helping you think about marketing as well. But at the very first on the on the coaching side of things, I think this actually quite an undervalued piece of it. I think something that you know, you've met you put a lot of energy and a lot of effort with you're ready. So I'd be interested to know, what does it look like to work with a hybrid publisher, like you that does have that coaching piece as part of it?
Annalisa Parent Yeah, so we really walk alongside the author. And so when they're in the writing phase, they're getting weekly support from our writing coaching team. So sometimes that's me, sometimes it's somebody else on the team, especially if they're not writers, they're really going to want that feedback of like, Where do I even start? Or does this make sense? How do I make that work? And let's not overlook the emotional component of that, right? And, you know, we're supposed to be so professional, you know what? Writing makes people cry for lots of different reasons. There's a vulnerability there, there could be a frustration there, there can be a lot of fear in expressing yourself, Will people like it? What if they hate it? What if they love it? Those are all realities of that situation, to say nothing of the fear of putting your message out there in the world for strangers to read. That's kind of a strange phenomenon that a book does. So we're working, not only with entrepreneurs to scale a business, not only with authors to get their message out into the world, but with people to work through what the reality of getting your message out into the world is. And I would say that's a differentiating factor for us. We're not a mill, who's just going to take anybody and turn out a book that doesn't matter what the content is. That's not what we're about at all. We're about quality connections, quality messages and quality books.
James Taylor It's interesting. I was talking to an author recently who she was working on our first book and nonfiction book business as usual. You successful in business. And she said, I'm going to write this book. And I'm not going to put it's not going to be my stories I don't want to be I don't put any meat into, it's just going to be about business and things. And as she was writing it, she was really struggling with it. And then I think the person she was working with or the editor said, you need to be adding yourself in here. You I can't see you in this, but I can't hear you. I can see you in this book. And she started adding those things very reluctantly, first. And then as she was getting feedback, both from the person she was working with it, and also just some support network that she had around her. They were saying, that's the bit that we love. Keep that keep that. And now she's on going doing the book tours, she's doing speaking and everything. And she said, whenever people want to book we said, I love that story that you told when you were 12. And that thing happened. And actually she's talking about a book, which is all about big business. But that's what as you said, going back to your very first point at the beginning of this interview, that's what people remember. They remember stories, parables.
Annalisa Parent Yeah, absolutely. And I completely understand where she started, right? Because it's really scary to share of ourselves. And it feels like we can shortcut it and tell other people's stories. And, you know, I can say from personal experience, James, my most recent book is a business book. It's my expert entrepreneur book. And in your intro, you gave that quote from Horace about being silly at the right times, this book is extraordinary, extraordinarily intellectually geeky, I geek out on writing big time. And I'm pretty dang silly in the book as well. So if you read my Amazon reviews, there are people who love that mix. And there are people that hate that mix. And my opinion on that is, that's okay. There are people out there who aren't going to jive with my vibe. And that's okay, they should work with someone else who's going to really get them and be able to take them where they need to go. But it's doing something magical in that the people who are ideal to work with me are the people who are going to love that book. And that's the part of the conversation that's so important is that authenticity, if I go into the cocktail party pretending to be someone that I'm not, I might have some good conversations, but I'm probably not going to come out with any friends.
James Taylor Now, when you absolutely mean, rings, not just rings true, not just in a book when you read it, and you just, it just it's kind of like flies off the pages things off the page. And I think when you hear it, when a speaker you talk about, you know, going in speaking events as well, I mean, you instantly know, when that speaker is telling something and it's coming from a deeper part is coming from an intro or even like it's a silly story, a funny story. But there's just there's changes, the energy in the room is different. I can't really explain any better than that, really, but you feel it rather than this. This is stuff I've learned from books, I'm maybe regurgitating something here as well, you so you move from then into the I'm interested as you start moving into this kind of editing stage. So you're getting creating all this content. When it comes to the editing, I hear all these different phrases all time at different types of editors. So we hear content editors, developmental editors, structural editors, copy editors. So like, so break it down. For me, when we hear these dividends, what are the different types of editors that you will often deal with as an author.
Annalisa Parent So at the end of the day, regardless of title, you need someone who's going to help you with the content. So content editors, developmental editors, structural editors, all of those fall under that they are slightly different, but they're all dealing with content. And then when you're finished finished, when you're ready to publish, when you're ready to submit, then you need a copy editor. And this is the brilliant person who comes in and make sure that all of your commas are in the right place, and you didn't misspell things, and that your manuscript is just cleaned up. Now let's go back to the content because there are a bunch of different types of editors. So a structural editor is exactly what it sounds like. They're going to help you to work on the structure, a developmental editor and a Content Editor. Those are sometimes used interchangeably and sometimes not. Typically, those editors are helping you to put together the content. So I was meeting with one of our authors this morning, and we were moving around paragraphs from chapter three and putting them into the introduction, because it made more sense there. And then we had to fix some of the transitions to make it work. That's the kind of work that a good content editor should be helping you with. And, you know, just as you know, for making a checklist of good attributes of an editor, I always read the entire draft of a manuscript before I start working with the author because I want to have a full comprehensive view of the entire message before we get started. And that's not true for all editors. So you need to decide if that's an important attribute for you in your editor. And that would be a question to ask if you're looking to hire someone.
James Taylor And I'm thinking, I'm gonna say, No, this is a nonfiction bar, but we see it now a lot more, I love called opens on, especially on speeches, maybe not on books, but there's like TV series I've been watching, like Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad. And they've they've really taken a piece that you would normally see maybe a quarter of the way through the TV show. And they put it right at the start. And your your curiosity is instantly. And I've seen in writers when they use that. And they'll put that story and it's in curiosity. It's and I can imagine from if you're getting a book on Kindle, for example, and you only have that first one, and it comes up to the end said, Would you like to buy this book? Or would you still like to stay on the sample? That's got me hooked, I need to buy a book now. So that's like how the importance of structure and moving things around and and finding it if you've got if you're if the theme that you're you're you're trying to put ahead is going the whole way through. I wonder something you mentioned there was this idea of, of magnet customer magnets or client magnets. In terms of those calls to action, if you let's say if you're a consultant, and one of your books as you want people to come and use your consulting services, would you be looking to put those kind of calls to action vague towards the start of the book, or peppered throughout the book? Or is it something you would leave right until till the end,
Annalisa Parent we pepper them throughout the book. And the reason for that is that fewer than 50% of people read the full book that they've purchased. So my goal in this book is that if I pick up your book, I'm your potential client and I pick it up, I can open to any page of that book, and engage in a conversation with you. That means that every word needs to count. And those calls to action need to come frequently enough that I can engage a reader who opens to page 51, I can engage a reader who takes a look at the index first, right? I want to be optimizing that book because again, technically, it's a book, but it's really a scaling tool. And we want to optimize that, to the extent the fullest extent that we can
James Taylor go to and in terms of tools when you're working with authors, especially first time authors, what tools are you recommending they use in terms of writing and drafting how you communicate with them.
Annalisa Parent So we always work in Google Docs. And I like Google Docs, because there's only ever one draft. So we don't have to worry about version one, version two, that just gets confusing. The other thing that's really nice about Google Docs is that it does have a speech feature. So you can talk to it, and it will type for you. Now, it's not perfect, but it's a good approximation. And then a lot of my authors find and this is really solid neuroscience, they find that they think best when they're moving. So there'll be on the treadmill, and they'll have some kind of recording device, a lot of them use apps on their phones, that record for them. And they might send that to somebody to transcribe or they might get an app that transcribes that for them. But, you know, it may not be the final draft, but it's at least a good approximation of the main ideas that they wanted to say, which is a good starting place for us to fill in the gaps.
James Taylor That's so that's so important. I think that's is undervalued when you have those ideas, and you say there's a lot of science now in terms of movement, and its effect on creativity, coming up with ideas and also colors, you know, certain colors will increase levels of, you know, numbers of creative ideas. But there's having that something with you all times you can capture whether it's Evernote, or whether it's just the voice recorder on your phone, or if you carry a journal, because we have these ideas all the time and it must remember to write that down and it never gets written. suddenly goes comes along. What about a book if you were to recommend one book and not not one of your own books were bought by another author? It could be on the craft of writing or maybe on the marketing or the selling of of your books. What would that book be?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely hands down on writing well by Williams enter
James Taylor on writing Well, that is I've never heard of that one. So I'm deaf. I'm gonna go in.
Annalisa Parent Oh, my goodness, this I use excerpts from this book in all of my workshops. He's, he's brilliant. And one of the things that I really respect about him and unfortunately we lost him about two years ago, but one of the things I really respect about him I think he was up to the sixth or seventh edition of this book because over the decades, he perpetually improved it to increase the clarity to eliminate the jargon, all of the things that he coaches in that book he lived and preached. And he also added chapters to it as we moved into, you know, a more digital world to be applicable to today's world. So I absolutely respect his work. And I love that book.
James Taylor Fantastic. We'll have a link here for that as well. And final kind of question, I'd love to know, cuz we don't really get so much time to talk about your own writing as well. But we'll have some links for that. But I'd be interested, if if you were that person who's starting, I'm gonna imagine it's yourself, you're going to be having to start again. So you've you do have your skills, you have your writing skills, which you didn't have before, you've got the knowledge you've acquired, but you have no platform, no one knows who you are, you know, no one, you're gonna have to restart with your writing, what would you do? How would you restart?
Annalisa Parent I think if I had to restart, I would start with the book first. So one of the stories that I've heard from millionaire entrepreneurs, billionaire entrepreneurs, who I interview on a regular basis to talk about, you know, what's the secret to your success? How did you do it? That book for all of them was a moment where they transitioned into the next level of their business, both from a confidence standpoint, and from a revenue standpoint, there was a huge jump, because the book gives you those opportunities, you're suddenly the expert, you're on the radio, you're invited to speak. And you can say, oh, if you read my book, oh, I talk about that in my book, right. So you're, you're the expert. And I think that, as tools go is one of if not the most powerful tools you can have available for you.
James Taylor That's fascinating. And so I love the idea in terms of just taking a step up. I mean, it is the book's incredible thing. You think how much information and knowledge and legacy you can put into this tiny little thing is, yeah, we're we're very fortunate to, to be in this in this world and be doing this at this time in history as well. If, and we're gonna have a link here to, to a really cool thing you have, which is a consultation that you do with prospective authors, aspiring authors, or new professional authors who are just you said, they've written a book, but it's not really working for them not really scaling form is called a free scaling consultation. And we're going to have a link here to be one, click on that link, go through to that and, and schedule that. Would you tend to when you focus on that converse of that consultation call? What are what are the things that you look to try and do with with the person on that call.
Annalisa Parent So we're looking to get 100% clarity on where these entrepreneurs, coaches and consultants are, where they want to go, and how they can get there? quite simple.
James Taylor And if people want to just reach out to you more generally check out about your your books and things that you have happening at the moment, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
Annalisa Parent Absolutely. So I'm gonna give myself a little shout out here. My most recent book storytelling for pantsers, which is my entrepreneur, expert book just won an award as the best business book of the year from the Colorado independent Publishers Association of solutions, thank you. And also in the humor categories, so it's fun and entertaining. So you can find that on Amazon simply by searching storytelling for Panzers and have it shipped straight to your home or buy it in ebook form. And the audio book is on its way, we'll come out to
James Taylor one four, I'm going to have a link for that as well. And this thank you so much for coming on today. And and helping demystify a lot the parts about the writing process and working with a writing coach and different types of editors. I wish you all the best with the businesses. It goes from strength to strength, and also your next book that you're working on.
Annalisa Parent Thank you so much. James has been a real pleasure to be here today with you and your audience.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
However, once you have all your random thoughts, tasks, and projects out of your head and into some physical form you need to decide what they mean to you. For example, let’s imagine some of these random thoughts and tasks related to a project you want to complete.
Some people like to map out all of the steps first in order to be able to see a clear picture of the major milestones, the timeline, and what the finished project must look like. This works very well for non-creative tasks as chances are there is already a template, a roadmap or an established way of doing things.
If that is the case you simply need to ask the question ‘what will success look like at the end’. Then ask yourself, ‘in order for the final project or goal to be achieved, what would be a task I would need to complete just before that?’ And what would be the task before that? Gradually you work your way backward and arrive and the very first step or task you should complete. In a sense, you are creating mental breadcrumbs for yourself.
However, not all projects are like this. When it comes to more creative projects or longer-term goals or if you are a more experimental creative then trying to go into this level of granular detail at the start is the worst thing you can do. You’ll often experience paralysis by analysis. You’ll quickly feel overwhelmed.
For example, the experimental artist Mark Rothko once said that “Ideas and plans that existed in the mind at the start were simply the doorways through which one left the world in which they occur”.
For many, a project is not so much about the goal but the journey, to discover something about yourself and the world through the process of a series of small experiments, tasks, and tests. You may have a vague sense of where you want to go but are willing to see where your creativity takes you or what your audience or customers react best to.
If this sounds like the kind of way that you go about projects then highly detailed plans won’t serve you. Instead, I suggest you follow the advice of writer Anne Lamott who said this on how to avoid overwhelm in the process of completing a big creative project like a novel. She said:
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
You don't always have to see where you're going, you don't even have to see your final destination or every little milestone you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet in front of you.
For experimental creatives like Mark Rothko or Anne Lamott or many of my Silicon Valley tech friends they just need to focus on the very next step, brushstroke, paragraph, or sprint.
Sometimes our creative life, and the projects within it, only make any kind of sense at the end. In Viktor Frankl’s wonderful book ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’ he said:
“Consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life? Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depending on whether or not the potential meaning of every single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?”
You see, to not become overwhelmed requires that we get comfortable with not knowing exactly how the movie or project ends. What is important is that the scene you are in makes sense and you act it well. What is important is that you just need to focus on those next few steps.
So look at the big braindump list that I asked you to do at the start. For each project what must you do today, tomorrow, and this week? And then commit to taking action because there is boldness in action. Everything else on that list you can ignore for now.
And remember, Vestigia nulla retrorsum! (no backward steps).
Creativity Calls For Courage. It requires that we commit to taking that next step forward.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to welcome Mark Coker. Mark is a CEO of Smashwords, a free ebook publishing and distribution platform and the world's largest distributor of indie ebooks. Smashwords makes it Fast, Free and Easy for authors and publishers to distribute ebooks to the world's largest ebook retailers and library ebook platforms. The Wall Street Journal named Mark is one of the eight stars of self publishing. And it's my great pleasure to welcome him on to the summit today. So welcome, Mark.
Mark Coker Hi, James. Great to be here.
James Taylor So share with everyone what's happening in your world just now what are you working on at the moment,
Mark Coker always too many things at once. Right, right now, as we speak, we're working on a redesign of the Smashwords homepage. So we'll be launching that in the next couple of weeks. Going to make the homepage more reader friendly. So this is
James Taylor I was reading you have a catalogue of near nearly half a million book titles now, as I did with the latest numbers last time I saw it, but take us right back to the very start. How did how did Smashwords begin? Wait, tell us about those first first books that were you could have put out through Smashwords platform?
Mark Coker Well, in some ways, it was an accident. My wife and I wrote a novel together. Title boob tube about 15 years ago now, my wife is a former reporter for a soap opera magazine here in the States. So we wrote a book about the dark underbelly of Hollywood soap operas and the dark underbelly of celebrity and we shopped it to agents were represented by one of the top agencies in New York City. And for two years, they tried to sell the book and couldn't sell it. And it was that experience trying to get a traditional publishing deal that really opened my eyes to what I saw what as some really structural fundamental problems in the publishing industry. And I, with my background in Silicon Valley, I thought, you know, this is a problem that could be solved. With technology. There's an opportunity here to democratize publishing, so that every writer in the world has the freedom to publish a book and have that book judged directly by readers, as opposed to having that book judged by gatekeepers. And so that's what we did in 2008. We launched Smashwords. And our book, boob tube was the third book at Smashwords. We had a couple other books that beat us to the punch. Yeah, and, you know, today, the rest is history. The business grew very rapidly. In 2009, we began distributing our books to major retailers, we were the first to open up Barnes and Noble and at the time, Sony to self published ebooks. And then later, we struck deals with Apple and other retailers. And then in more recent years, over the last five, six years, we've worked really hard to open up major library platforms to self published ebooks. So that's been really exciting.
James Taylor You've really been at that whole that curve as it was going up in terms of the world of the ebooks. I mean, there's no, because you have this blend of coming from the writing side, being an author, and then also but the Silicon Valley side, who were your mentors, as you were building this, this business because you're you're in this interesting intersection of publishing and, and technology?
Mark Coker Well, you know, that's a big question. I've got, you know, over the over the last couple decades that I've been involved in the tech industry, I can name multiple mentors that were inspiring to me, prior to falling into this business. I ran a high technology PR firm. So I was privileged to work with the CEOs and VPS of marketing of some of the most interesting innovative Silicon Valley companies. And many of the technologies that we helped promote and Pioneer during those years. Believe it or not, we're applicable to the E book world. So I was very active. On the PR side, I was the first PR person representing McAfee the big antivirus software company, McAfee was one of the first they were the first shareware company to go public. They gave their software away for free and let people pay for on the honor system. they relied on electronic software distribution to distribute their product to customers rather than putting their product in boxes. And so a lot of those principles from those early McAfee years in the late 90s, were directly applicable to some of the principles that were at the time very revolutionary that I brought to ebook self publishing, because ebooks are software, just like software software, they're just digital bits and bytes. So too many, too many VPS of marketing and CEOs to name as mentors. When I got started with the business when I first launched Smashwords, the very close mentor of mine was Dan Poynter. Dan, I consider the father of self publishing. He's the author of the pointers, self publishing manual, that's been published continuously now for almost 30 years, over 30 years. Unfortunately, Dan passed away a couple of years ago, but he was a real early supporter of us, a mentor of mine, he pulled me aside and was just very supportive opening doors for us, introducing us to conference managers giving us advice. So he was really a dear friend, and mentor
James Taylor of people that don't know about the Smashwords platform. They hadn't used it before describing basically, how does it work? And what are the tools that are in there, that they can help authors and publishers to, to kind of get their books out into the world and to market and sell their books. Sure.
Mark Coker So as you mentioned in the intro, we make it Fast, Free and Easy for any writer anywhere in the world to publish an E book. So you have two options when you come to Smashwords to publish your book. The first is that you can upload your manuscript as a Microsoft Word document, and then we'll take that document in our technology will automatically be automatically converted into multiple ebook formats. So it'll be available for reading on any reading device. And then your second option is to come to us with professionally designed and formatted EPUB file. So e pub is the open industry standard for ebooks that every major retailer except for Amazon uses,
James Taylor so that you mentioned the the dreaded Amazon word. And I know you've been very vocal in terms of their approach, in terms of within, especially with Indies, authors, and indie publishers as well. Which probably explained to you there's a number of things that can coming up in Amazon that started things like KDP Select, whether we've heard of so is, is the world of indies strong? And do you think things are looking good for the Indies when you have obviously space strong, dominant powers in the publishing world, like like, like Amazon,
Mark Coker it's a complicated story, right now. I believe that there's never been a time better but never been a better time to be an author. There's never been a better time to be a self published author. If you compare your opportunities today as a writer to your opportunities 10 years ago, it's night and day difference. Today, you can start writing a book and with 100% assurance, you can know that your book is going to see the light of day and is going to be published and read by customers. Whether you self publish, or traditionally published 10 years ago, there was really only one option, and that was to traditionally publish that method, over 90% of authors books would never see the light of day. So Amazon launched in late 2007, just a couple months before Smashwords launched. Amazon deserves mad kudos for the innovation that they brought to self publishing the support that they've shown self published authors, their ability to grow the E book market as the world's largest online seller of books. So huge kudos to Amazon for that. But there's a dark side to what's been happening. Amazon's business model is entirely dependent upon commoditizing everything that it sells. And it's dependent upon controlling the price to the consumer. And the only way to control the price to the consumer is to control what you pay to the provider of the product to the supplier and in This case the supplier is the author. So Amazon's putting a lot of pressure on authors to lower their prices, and to basically drop their drawers and sell their books for lower costs. That works out great for customers. But it doesn't work out. Always so great for authors because authors unlike manufacturers of mousetraps can't outsource their production to China or to India, you are the producer of your product. And so whenever I see any anyone trying to take pricing control away from the author, I push back against that, because I think you as the author as the the producer of this intellectual property, you have a right to determine how where and when your book is sold, and you have a right to set a price for your product. And what we've seen with Amazon and with especially with KDP, select you mentioned KDP Select and for for listeners who aren't familiar with it. Amazon has two ebook self publishing options. The first is the regular KDP. And I recommend that every author is on KDP because it's the world's largest marketplace for ebooks. But the second option This is an optional option is called KDP. Select which you mentioned. And with KDP Select Amazon requires you to make your book exclusive to them for at least three months. That means you can't sell your book on any other website. You can't even put it on your own personal website. And KDP Select as I warned back in 2011, when it first launched, is toxic to the future of publishing. And it's toxic to the future of author independence. So now we have a situation where over over 1 million ebooks are exclusive to Amazon, these books cannot be purchased at any other retailer. So readers, millions of readers now have over a million read reasons not to shop at any other retailer. And so what we're seeing is that the customer base of other competing retailers, like apple, Barnes and Noble Kobo are slowly being pulled away and shifting into the Amazon ecosystem. That means that Amazon's competitors are getting weaker, they're they're more challenged at achieving profitability, which means their very future is in jeopardy. Now, Apple's never going to go out of business because they have more money than God. But Barnes and Noble, Kobo, two other great ebook retailers that that support the indie author community, both of those retailers are in jeopardy if the current trends continue. And I don't see anything reversing those trends, because most writers are born desperate to reach readers and Amazon has provides access to the world's largest collection of readers. And that would be a great thing, if not for the fact that that Amazon's business model is dependent upon commoditizing your work making your work, undifferentiated and undone differentiate a bowl from another author's work. Now I know a lot of authors think that, you know, my book is my unique creative product. It can't be commoditized because there's no other book like my book. But the fact of the matter is that reading pleasure is commoditized can be commoditized. Because if you look at it in terms of how many hours of reading pleasure, can you get per dollar, or per euro, or per pound, you're going to get a lot more reading pleasure per unit of currency at Amazon with KDP Select, then you're going to get it any other retailer because the other retailers don't have a subscription option. The other retailers pay based on the list price of your book, whereas in KDP Select and Kindle unlimited which is their subscription service which is powered by KDP Select authors are paid out of a pool, they're paid about one half penny per page that's read
James Taylor there's lots of echoes here from myself, I come from the music industry originally. There's lots of echoes here of the things like Spotify, which is what well for some some creatives but probably not great for most creatives and I noticed when I saw that the Kindle unlimited thing I didn't didn't personally go with that I don't know subscriber to kindle because I had these horrible feelings of we're gonna go down the the Spotify route Tiana is is you say it's becoming very commoditized. In that way.
Mark Coker It's a slippery slope. Now there are other subscription models that I'm quite supportive of. For example, script script is probably the second largest provider of subscription ebook services. Script pays authors And publishers based off of the list price. So after a certain percentage of the book is read, it triggers a credit to the author or publisher as a full sale. And I think that's a much more author publisher friendly model. Because if script gives away too many hours of reading pleasure per dollar, then then they go out of business, because the authors and publishers aren't paid well enough. So they're challenged to find that that common intersection between what works for the author publisher what works for the reader, and what works for the subscription service provider, and I think script has found that balance.
James Taylor And one of the things that I know that the KDP Select, you also mentioned is that you can't put it up on your own website, let's say, you know, during that that period of however many months there, I'm guessing, you know, for a lot of our audience here who are nonfiction in business, they're reading business books, or nonfiction books of some sort, then that can sometimes be a little bit of a chat challenge. Because you're one we're also looking to try and build up pre orders as well. So I know you've done a lot of research into the world of pre orders and how pre orders can lead to ongoing success. What have you found when you've been doing research into the world of pre orders?
Mark Coker Sure. So any book pre order is an advanced listing of your book at the major retailers up to 12 months before the book is ready for purchase and reading. So pre orders are one of the most powerful one of the most effective marketing tools and they're also one of the most underutilized tools in the indie community. We've been tracking preorder adoption rates for a few years now, in 2018, this is based on the new Smashwords survey 2018 data, which I haven't released yet on the blog, but I'll release probably in the next couple months, we found that about 17% of new books published by indie authors and publishers originated as any book pre order, yet that small percentage of books that originated as pre orders accounted for the vast majority of sales. But we also dug deeper into the preorder adoption rates across different genres and categories. For example, we found that in romance, which is one of the top indie categories, 29% of the books originated as a pre order yet that 29% of books accounted for fully 75% of all book sales for the for that year, for new books released in that category. On the nonfiction side, for example, if we look at nonfiction, biographies, only 15% of new indie titles in that category originated as pre orders yet that 15% of books accounted for 79% of the sales in that category for the year. So what we're seeing is that ebook, pre orders, books that are released as pre orders are vacuuming up all the sales. And what it means if you step back for indie authors is that if you don't release your book as an E book pre order, you're leaving readers and money on the table.
James Taylor That's fascinating. Did they have that kind of data that supported data to be able to show that is everyone now is in the back of the house thinking okay, I need to get my preorders strategy stopped by MK Dave, I'm much bigger as well. And I also heard, so I
Mark Coker know but basically, what I would say on that count is look at your publishing calendar for the next 12 months. Any book that you plan to release in the next 12 months, get it up on pre order. Now, you don't need a book cover yet, you don't even need the manuscript yet. It's Smashwords, we have a feature called asset list pre orders, these are metadata only pre orders. So you can establish the pre order with as little as just the title of the book, a book description category in a price center release date,
James Taylor and what what and why is it that that those pre orders you mentioned that is such a small number is driving so much the sales? What is going on? Is it the algorithm or what's happening,
Mark Coker there's a number of factors that are driving it, I think the most important factor is that pre orders enable more effective advance book marketing. So most authors are on their blogs, on Facebook, on Instagram, wherever they communicate with their readers, talking about what works in progress. They've got going, what's coming out in the future. And the authors might not even consider what they're doing marketing, but that's marketing. And if you have a pre order link, the pre order hyperlink that you can share with your followers, then you're able to capture that readers interest that you're able to capture that readers order at the moment you have the greatest interest and attention. So that's probably the biggest reason. Another big factor is that the merchandising at the major retailers is Very future focused, what's coming out what's new. And this is especially true at Apple iBooks, which is the world's second largest global seller of books. Apple does the very best job of promoting pre orders. And they have a special algorithm at Apple that you won't find it the other retailers, that Apple, all of those pre orders that you accumulate during the pre order period, credit toward your first days sales rank when your book finally goes on sale. So we've had a number of authors on the day of their release, hit number one at the Apple Store, worldwide, we've had authors go live with thousands of accumulated pre orders. And when you get that kind of boost to your sales rank that makes your book more visible and more desirable to other readers. Because readers use bestseller lists to identify their next read, readers see bestseller lists as the amalgamation of the the wisdom of the masses, because they're related to what other readers are buying.
James Taylor It is a bit of an advantage. And the indie authors have over pup of a traditional published authors and because they they can have they can they they they have more control over their timelines, let's say
Mark Coker yes and no. You know, the, I think the first thing to understand is that the preorder adoption rate among indie authors is abysmally low. I mean, it's just horrible that more than 80% of indie authors aren't releasing their books as pre orders. Yet, if you look at traditional publishers, pre orders have been a recognized best practice for years. So almost every major publisher, major traditional publisher is releasing their books as as a book pre orders. So this is this is an example where the indie authors are a little bit behind the curve. But indie authors with pre orders do have some advantages that the traditional publishers don't have. The best many of the bestsellers that we see at Smashwords are series. And one of the one of the tricks that that indie authors use is to price their first their first book in the series at free.
James Taylor And then use that to hook the reader get the reader invested in the series. And then the reader goes on to purchase all the other books. So if you can combine a free series starter on a series with a series that has a pre order out at the very end, either as Book Two, Book Three, book four, book five, or whatever, then you can drive a lot more readers into your series. And I have been one of those buyers, I have been got hooked on that that first one to free. And it's totally brought me and then bought the second third in the book. So I think that's a and this is kind of goes back to this idea of I guess, being quite strategic in your in your planning and your thinking as an indie as an indie author. I know, we had Joanna pen was interviewed as part of the summit and Joanna said we you know, we need to move from thinking of ourselves as self published authors to independently published authors and have a bit of that, you know, just because you're an indie doesn't mean you have, you can have, you know, really well thought out plans. And really well, you know, well executed plans as well. So that's great. So I love that you're providing all this data available so they can start to you and one of the you have a great podcast, one of the the episodes you did that was the 16 secrets of best selling authors. And, and it was a whole bunch of I liked number one process, which is basically write a good book, which is, is obviously the main one, but actually one of the other ones was the build a platform that you control. And I think that's incredibly important.
Mark Coker Yes, you know, I we've, a lot of authors have learned this lesson the hard way. So just look at Facebook, for example, authors spent thousands of dollars millions of dollars collectively, building up their platforms at Facebook, only to have Facebook, pull the rug out from underneath their feet and start charging authors for access to people who are following them. So a lot of authors saw that as a bait and switch. And so the the people who are following you on Facebook, or who are following you on Twitter or Instagram, you don't actually control access to those people. Those people who want to see every single one of your tweets and posts, they're not going to see your tweets and posts unless you pay money to access them. So I'm a big believer in authors building a platform they control. That means building your own private mailing list, doing everything you can to drive readers into your private mailing list because you control that and then you can control your communications With your readers very important. Great advice there.
James Taylor What about if, when you're working with, with authors, is there any tools that you would recommend any online tools or apps you find particularly useful for writers, especially nonfiction writers,
Mark Coker I don't have any recommendations for apps or tools on the writing side. Most of the most of the books that we see written are written in in a word processor or Microsoft Word. I would say use what works best for you. There are a lot of different writing tools. And you know, they're fine too, if they work for you. But it really depends on your writing style. Are you a plotter or a pantser? And if you're, if you are a meticulous plotter, then I think a lot of these software programs have a lot more value to you.
James Taylor And what about if you were to recommend one book, actually, we spoke, you know that those 16 secrets of best selling authors, and the first one was really about the craft, it'd be of really writing a good book, if there's one book you would recommend, specifically on the craft of writing and being a good author being a great author, hopefully, what would that book be?
Mark Coker You know, I'm a big fan of Stephen King's book on writing. I think that's a great introductory book for anyone who's just getting started considering writing a book, fantastic,
James Taylor wonderful book. And, and I'd like you to kind of put your mind to it, I'm going to put a straight, it's like an unusual question to you, I want you to imagine that tomorrow morning, you have to start from scratch, I'm gonna have you put your author hat on at this stage. So you have no one knows you, you know, no one. But you do have the skills you've acquired as an author of the year. So you're gonna have to completely restart your career as an author, what would you do? How would you restart things,
Mark Coker tapping into my experience in publishing, I would know that good books aren't good enough anymore. And so I would focus relentlessly. You know, after that first draft is written, multiple revisions, more revisions, beta readers, professional editing, there's just no substitute for that. If you're an indie author, and you're preparing to release your first book, and you've got a couple thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and you're wondering if you should spend that on editing or marketing, spend it on editing, because your book, the quality of your book, is the best marketing that you'll ever receive. Because books sell based on the the wings of reader word of mouth, it's all about word of mouth. So I would start with a super fabulous book, I would, I would orient my publishing strategy primarily around ebooks. With one exception, if I'm writing nonfiction, I'm a professional speaker. And I have the ability to sell books in the back of the room, that I definitely want to have print books as part of my marketing mix, because I want to sell print books in the back of the room. The next thing on the book side, if I'm just getting started, my author platform hasn't been established, I'm going to price my first books at free. I'll probably look to write series. So I'm going to play I'm going to price the first book in the series at free. And I'm going to get the second book up on pre order. And if there's a third book coming in the next 12 months, I'm gonna get that up on pre order as well. So you use the free book to drive as many readers as possible into the series. And then you start building your platform with with books one, two, and three, as you drive people into the series. Another really important tip, and you saw this on you probably heard this on the smart author podcast on that 16 bestseller secrets episode. A lot of authors make the mistake of ending their book with a period and then nothing after that. When the reader finishes your book, put your put yourself in the readers shoes, they just discovered their new favorite author, they just discovered you they've never read you before they loved your book. They want to read more from you. They want to know more about you they want to connect with you. So add these three sections to the back matter of your book at a section titled connect with the author, put all your social media coordinates there with live hyperlinks, so they can with a click directly start following you directly start subscribing to your private mailing list. The second section about the author. So a short bio to humanize the author doesn't need to be a long CV, just something short, tell the reader something about the author. And then the third section and these sections can appear in any order in the back matter would be other books by this author. So that's a great opportunity to make it really easy for readers to start reading and discovering your other books. If you write series and the reader just finished book one, let them know what Book Two in this series is give them a free sample right directly within the book so you can get them hooked and directly involved into the new series. The next big tip next to the quality of your book, Nothing's more important than the cover. Readers do judge books by the cover. Now, images are a form of communication, but they're a much denser form of communication, you can communicate much more information with images, then you can communicate with words. So again, put yourself in your target readers shoes, understand who your target reader is, who's that target reader who will enjoy your book more than any other reader in the world, that's your target reader. So if you're writing nonfiction about real estate, you're not targeting all real estate investors, you might be targeting a certain subset of real estate investors. So target that subset, and then develop a cover that promises through imagery that your book will satisfy the readers aspirations now that you understand who that reader is, and what they aspire to, from there, what they aspire for in their next reading experience. So those are a few tips to get you started. Fantastic,
James Taylor great list of tips there. So Mark, thank you so much for sharing those. And we're going to have a link here to the smart author podcast because it's a great series of, of podcast these, I think I just started on, there was one you were doing all that pre orders, you've got one just about talking about pre orders as well. So we'll have that link to the smart author podcast. We're also going to have a link here to Smashwords itself so people can go in there, get your account set up and start with start working on that as well. And if people want to reach out directly to you mark up or to follow you and learn more about the other things that you're involved in, where's the best place to go and do that?
Mark Coker Well, you can follow me on Twitter, at Mark Coker, Ma, rk c Okay, er, you can follow me on Facebook, also mark Coker, or you can send me an email. My email is mc@smashwords.com. I look forward to hearing from people.
James Taylor Well, Mark, thank you so much for your time today and sharing some absolute brilliant bits of knowledge and insights all backed backed up by data and surveys. I know you've been doing as well. And I wish you all the best when we as as Smashwords goes from strength to strength. So thanks so much for coming on today.
Mark Coker Thank you, James. My pleasure.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
So for example let’s think about a book. What is a book? This is my friend Fredrik Haren’s book. At first viewing, we might see it as something that provides me with information. We can focus on the words on the page and their meanings. But this is just one perspective. What if we look at the book like a painter would. They might look at the book with a view to painting it or painting a portrait of the writer or the ideas within it. The artist may view the book not so much as a collection of words but will instead see how the shadow falls on the spine, or how the pages curve, or the texture of the cover. Then we can view the book from the perspective of the copy editor, or the translator, or the bookbinder or the book marketer. The point is that we can view the book from different perspectives.
Now ask yourself a whose view of the book is true? Is it the writer or the painter or the book-binder? In each case, we are seeing different versions of the truth. This allows a plurality of versions of reality to co-exist without being in tension with each other.
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
By constantly using our critical thinking abilities to ask questions from different perspectives (or taking part in debates with those of other viewpoints) we gradually begin to arrive at a clearer and more logical understanding of the truth. This is why there is value in a plurality of ideas or perspectives and surrounding yourself with those who see the world differently.
There is a danger to viewing a problem or a challenge or an idea from one paradigm. As the writer, Abraham Maslow was believed to have said, “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
There is a wonderful story from Indian culture which epitomizes this miopic view. One day a group of blind men heard that a strange animal had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. So, they sought it out, and when they found it they touched the animal with their hands. The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This animal is like a thick snake". One of the other blind men reached its ear and said ‘it seemed like a kind of fan’. As for another person, whose hand was on its leg, they said, this thing is a pillar-like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the animal, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail described it as a rope. The last felt the front of its head, stating the animal is like a spear. All of them only knew one part of the truth. By discussing and debating with each other hopefully they would have figured out it was in fact an elephant.
Your critical thinking will only take you so far. It enables you to view the problem from different perspectives but it doesn’t come up with new solutions. That’s where creative thinking comes in.
Creative thinking is about reflecting on different perspectives or truths and then bringing new ideas to the mind. Innovation is then about bringing these new ideas to the world.
In the case of our book if we return to our original question of ‘what is the purpose of a book’ then we might decide that a book is simply one mind setting down their thoughts and insights on a subject. We can then ask a different set of questions like ‘does this one mind have to be human’. Could artificial intelligence write a better book? Could I co-write a book with an AI? Is the written word even the best method for getting across an idea today or am I better to share this story or my insights in a more experiential or visual form like a hologram storyteller?
The next time you are looking to solve a problem experiment with how you can combine your critical thinking and your creative thinking. Perhaps you have a member of your team who is supercreative while you are more critical or analytical. Great, by collaborating you are able to view problems and solutions from different perspectives.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor here. And I'm delighted to have with us today Lloyd Luna. Lloyd Luna is a productivity humorist and one of Asia's most popular motivational speakers, as well as being the author of 10 books covering business and personal development. He is also a serial entrepreneur in the Philippines, having started and built businesses, including a speaker Bureau and a book publisher. And it's my great pleasure to have loads with us today. So welcome, Lloyd,
Lloyd Luna thank you so much the James Taylor
James Taylor So we've we've hung out before we were in Singapore, and I'm gonna be over with you as soon as the Philippines as well. But for people that don't know a little bit more about you, I would love to in First of all, what are you working on just now what has your focus at the moment? And when it comes to your writing? How did you get to publishing all these books in the first place?
Lloyd Luna Um, interestingly, I saw I outgrew myself, I am now focusing on a very specific topic I call step up leadership. Since I started 13 years ago, I have been speaking a lot of about motivation and general inspiration. So otherwise, like I was accepting invitations from everywhere, to speaking to to anyone on the topic of career development, being a great student, being a great manager. Being a great entrepreneur is like a book that I have written since 2004 talked about many things about motivation, they are generic, they are nonspecific. But at the moment, I'm focusing solely on doing a leadership expedition to the fogo rice, they're assessing the Philippines, the eighth wonder of the ancient world, based on mainly this book stepback leadership. So
James Taylor you've got you've gone on this journey from being a kind of general motivational speaker, author to being one who is starting to focus very much on leadership. I think I saw the other day you were I think it was a leaders leader, you know, you've got you, you have a you're really starting to kind of niche down and kind of finding your lane that you want to go with. I'm interested in, you know, in choosing that and trying to focus on that was that because you're looking to move more internationally, in your, in your audiences and your and your speaking was that one of the reasons for doing that or that is that just the topic you find it strongly kind of aligns with you
Lloyd Luna win them. First and foremost, I think contrary to some popular belief. In the Philippines, we have a unique leadership concept 2000 years ago, and it's about the people being the leader. And it was never documented until I came up to the mountains and interview the tribe who survive in 2000 years. And I thought that for the longest time a lot of leadership concepts from the west, they were tried to transfer to the east and they they made the Philippines starting they started the Spaniards conquered the Philippines 300 years for 300 years, Japanese for a couple of years, Americans for a couple of years. So all of this leadership from the Western and one from from Japan they they took away the sort of the leadership unique the unique leadership style the rigorous Thai original style of Filipino leadership. So I thought when I when I went back to the the mountains, the rice terraces I discovered the the the unique Regional leadership style that we have, that we have been that we must be must be having. So it was sort of a, a junction between realizing that I had to narrow down my my my content, because I don't want to be popular. I want to be known. I want to go out to be the go to guy in terms of a specific topic, whether I'm writing a book or I'm speaking, so that it resonated. Now, it's I'm advocating for the eastern Asian leadership style, which is primarily built on trust, collaboration, humanity. Facebook nowadays has been popping about No, we are a collaborative company, hey, 2000 years ago, we are doing that, we were doing that. So I thought that when when to sing the things that I right now, I am really focusing sharply about step back leadership. So leadership is really generic when you write about leadership. But But I guess one of the things that an aspiring author should consider really, is to make sure that he has a sort of an original content research, whatever that that may be, that he can really or he or she can really call his or her own. It's not a it's not a derivative from from someone else's, it's a very unique to him or her. And then from there, we can expand the business.
James Taylor And sometimes it is, as you say, I mean, you'll you'll find something very kind of local to you, which you think that the world can can learn from. Funny enough, I was, I was just somewhere a few weeks ago locally to me. And it was something I found like an old historical thing, I thought, actually, I want to be able to use that because it's a really good, it links into my my bigger things I speak on. So you can have use that use those kind of unique stories, which probably only you or a small note people would go go to look for. But it's something the other guests we've had, they've said, some of the guests we've had, they've said I'm a an author who speaks. And other guests, we've had said I'm a speaker, who writes, I'm a writer who speaks on my speaker who writes, do you have a sense of which which one of those you are? Or are you something in between,
Lloyd Luna I am some something in between. I started as an author, and ended up as a speaker, and the speaker, I am now ending up as an authorof a sherco.Trying to go the cycle. So yeah, I mean, between basically in between
James Taylor you in that middle part. And when you first started going on your journey to becoming an author, who were those role models for you, whether were the people that you had around you that you could ask advice from in terms of how to write and to publish? Or did you have to kind of look from afar, maybe authors that you admired and kind of learn from them?
Lloyd Luna Well, the first book, The first book I have ever read, is the alchemist by Paulo Coelho. So Paulo Coelho has been very instrumental in in my journey, I started as a par laquelle guy. And then the second book that I was able to read, minus the politics, if Donald Trump's book how to get rich, with a co author, of course, so those those two personalities really inspired me to, to to write. So at first they were influential in my, my writing journey. So but but yeah, as far as I can remember, after that, I just navigated things on my own right from from writing to publishing, because for those of for, for those audience, who, who don't know, the story, I in 2004, I wrote the manuscript, that all publishing houses in the entire Philippines turned down. So it's very painful, but the really bothered me at all, because I thought one day it will come out. And the only the only way that I could do that is when I put up my own publishing business, which I didn't know, the business, I had just had to register the business. Without the business plan without planning itself. It was me, myself and I. So it was a corporation about about myself, just to make sure that I'm able to publish the book, and from there never do that. So I thought, for those who are aspiring to be to be an author, number one that they need to do is eliminate all the possible excuses that can they can ever think. Because excuses does not make a book.
James Taylor So when you say that, eliminate the excuses, and we're going to talk about this in May, I know you do workshops in terms of book book writing book making, when those students come to you as people come to you and they, they have no idea maybe I want to write a book or something. Maybe writing is something I want to have in my life. What are the what are the main excuses that they can they'll say to you, they say
Lloyd Luna that they don't have the time, time who will who else will give you time. Elsewhere, can you buy additional time? The thing is, they don't have time, they don't have the expertise, they are conscious about their grammar, they are afraid of not being accepted, they are afraid of being criticized for your writing, they are afraid of not being able to sell afterwards, they are just, they just afraid they are just afraid of so many things. And these are these are excuses that really keep them from from producing, writing a book. And number two, I guess very important is that they have to identify whether they are the content provider or the writer. Because in this time of history, I thought that you don't have to write to be an author. If you are a content provider, you can easily just get the recorder and record yourself based on the structure of the conference you want to discuss, have somebody transcribe it, have somebody edit it, have somebody design the graphics, and have somebody to print the book, and then publish it. Well done, then of the story. So I thought, you have to decide first, whether you're a content provider, because not all speakers can easily become an author overnight. But one of the things that make it difficult for them to publish a book, or write the book or producible is that they tried to be someone else, if you're not a writer, just get the record, record yourself and then do the process. And that's what we do during the making workshop, really make sure that you identify what you can and what you can do. And make sure that you are able to collaborate with other players because an editor is making a living out of editing job. So let's not kill the editors by giving them the job.
James Taylor Lesson edit our own, if we cannot net the graphics editor, do the cover, don't don't design, things like this. So you really acting as the intellectual property creating the center, then, and then you're just finding those other roles that's going to support you. I mean, it's funny when we think if we go way, way back, you know, 1500 2000 years, then a lot of these famous books that we think today of whether it's you know, the Bible, or whether it's dhammapada, or whatever the book is, they weren't actually written by those authors, there were scribes there that would write out the book, there was someone there who'd had the the content creators, you say, would be speaking it. And then there would be writers, scribes, that we'd be writing it or memorizing it, and then writing it down at a later date. So we're kind of coming back, we're kind of coming back circle. Again,
Lloyd Luna it is interesting, because I think Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ was the provider of the content. And the apostles just wrote this book for him. Interesting, the richest author of all probably, right. It's also interesting to note that we have to somehow be able to adjust. By the color of the times, you know, this is the time in history, when we don't have so much luxury of time, that we can sit and concentrate about creating, again, identifying whether you are a content provider, and or a writer is very crucial before producing publishing.
James Taylor Now in your events, I've checked them that the workshops that you run, they look really fun, because they're, they're quite sure, I think two or three day events, they're in beautiful locations in the Philippines is when you get everyone together. And and the thing that you work with the writers on or the content creators on is how to get what's in their head, potentially in their head and their expertise out onto a page and into into into a book or into a form. So can you talk through just you know, the top the top level, you know that what that process looks like, for someone that hasn't experienced, you know, maybe a dip, maybe they they've traditionally kind of come at it from the specter of just sitting down there and writing every day and doing it that way. But can you talk about the process that you work with writers on?
Lloyd Luna Well, number 1am I, I thought that my first i thought that my story that the first thing I did was to eliminate all five possible excuses that they had. So I tell them the story how I started. And number two, I realize the power of peer pressure, when you come together as a group, and push yourself to the limits so that two months later, all of you will have to launch a book. So the process starts from me telling the story and assisting them on how they can structure their chapters. And then once they do that, the team will kind of sort of evaluate each one's title and subtitle and possible structure the contents. So it's a it's a It becomes a community, a very small community for a batch of aspiring authors, that they give inputs to each one, and then after that they they come come together, and then make sure that they have the schedule with me to work finally on the content, and this happens, after the bookmaking workshop, I sit with them over coffee, and have a two hour interview about their content based on the structure that we created during the workshop. And then after that transcription, editing, layout, design, publishing, and then printing. So in less than 60 days, the book is out. And they have this group launch this very important, they have a group launch. So it's something that they don't have to
James Taylor and the benefit of also having working in that group way, first of all, then you've essentially got a small focus group of other people giving you feedback on your ideas as you're creating it. So you're getting almost like you're kind of market testing it, I guess, before the big round is that the manga testing and mastermind, the mastermind, exactly. And then so and then also, when you go and launch, you've got a group of other people, it's not just you, they're trying to promote to your own list or your own audience. But you've got a group of other people maybe connected in the same world, maybe not. But they're all promoting or talking about your book, together.
Lloyd Luna Yes, perfectly. It's exactly what what the what is happening here in the Philippines. And that's exactly what I intend to do. In the next couple of years, maybe in my lifetime.
James Taylor That's my thought. So how many people do tend to have on these workshops that you do at the moment,
Lloyd Luna so it should be from eight to 10 people. More than that, I think it will be really ineffective. I want to focus one on one. Plus, of course, there should be some scheduled problems eventually, when you when you try to launch it in 60 days, and you have more than
James Taylor 10. Now, you mentioned also being that content provider in the middle there and having these other roles. You mentioned the role of the editor. You mentioned the role of the designer, what other roles does someone need to have a random if they're going to use that type of model?
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, that's about it. I mean, you provide the content, somebody transcribed it verbatim. And then someone edits it goes back to you and say, Oh, I need to add some more idea and then go about the editor. And then final days there will give the copy back to you and say, Okay, let's go and then the publisher will say, Okay, let's go that get the ESPN and then go to the printer, say print the book, 100 copies, one 504,000 copies. And basically that's it. So well in between you're trying to design the the book, cover front back and then the layout of the content. So nothing much. Nothing much to do I always emphasize the it's very important. I always emphasize, to focus on your role in bookmaking, what is your role really, because if you are unable to identify the role, it will get messy along the way, you are not the editor or you are not the graphics designer, you need to leave this thing to them.
James Taylor And then what but that transcribing role so your imagine you you're speaking out your ideas, you're getting your outline, your chapter headings, and you're kind of talking your ideas, or using something like a rev.com, you know, transcribe transcription service like that, or you just try and find someone who can specialize in transcribing these types of books. They can also do a little bit of finessing when they're transcribing your words.
Lloyd Luna Yeah, the general idea of transcription is very, very interesting transcription. So that transcriber or transcription is cannot, cannot do something about it, except that to transcribe it, word by word. And secondly, if it is a direct English to ours, and then we send to like, wrap it around. Yeah, software, sort of a sorry, service provider that does that. So yes, basically, by all means, I am not yet using that one. But in the future, it is fully unleash. And then I will go for $1. Was it $1 per word?
James Taylor Yeah, well, yeah, there's this. There's a couple of other I think it's $1 per minute, but actually, there's there's a, there's a number of other services, I can't recall the names of them now that are even cheaper than that. But you just you have to deal with the fact that some of them the quality, the accuracy is not as high. I've used rev.com. And I like them. And I like the the accuracy, but some of the ones you can, you can do and then maybe 97% accurate instead of 99% accurate. Yeah. So you
Lloyd Luna decide or maybe it's your fault, but now it's appearing the way James Taylor used the service.
James Taylor Yeah. So as you've been progressing on this journey as an author, was there any big lightbulb moment or insight the time when you went Ah, okay, this is the direction I want to go with my writing. Oh, this is the this is what I want. This is the kind of audience I want to serve. With my writing
Lloyd Luna Oh, well, first it was Andrew Bryan from past president of the Asia professional speaker, Singapore that asked me, What is your topic? What is it that you talk about? What is the subject that you speak on? And they said, a lot. And he said, not a good idea. So and I asked him, What are you talking about the said self leadership? And I thought, Wow, how sharp was that? how narrow was that, that the conversation was just contained in the self leadership, it's, it's about directly promoting the, the his topic, original topic, so to speak. So ideas really realize that until I attended the global speaker summit in Auckland, New Zealand in February, and the same thing, the same thing was given to me, like you have to narrow down you have to be an expert in specific field is it should be a two inch, two inch wide and one two miles deep. So if I said probably Yeah, it's very difficult for us to leave our comfort zone. When you're in that level that you have been, I have written 1414 books, and I'm comfortable with my subject is very easy. I did not do a cop a lot of research, writing the 10 1112 books, 13 books. But on my fourth book, I had the travel 357 kilometers from the from Manila, and immerse, immerse myself in the imago culture, local tribe. Just to make sure that I get it right research I, I lived in the mountains for a couple of days. And really asked the tribe leaders and the elders, and the people in the community how they built the the rice terraces in 2000 years ago. And now I became an archeological research. And I didn't even realize that I am now on the geologists, cultural archaeologists. So it's a it's a it's an interesting journey. I it's not, it was not really an intention, though, at that point. But the light bulb again started when that under Brian guy came to the Philippines asked me and then it was really reaffirmed in Auckland, when when the same topic was was presented.
James Taylor So this book is coming out is going to be coming out all about this, this discovery that you've made there and how it applies how other business leaders and business owners can apply this. And executives can apply this to their own businesses. I you already can going out on the road now with the the keynote to go alongside the book, or that's something that you're working up working up now as well.
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, I have a couple of, well, I have two, I have three business models that that are derivative from the book. So if you are an author, and I suggest you become an author, if you're if you're watching, or listening, is because writing a book does not only make an authority, it gives you the opportunity to expand your business by using different business models, for example, my Starbuck leadership, the initial idea is to do a keynote speech about the book. And if you aren't able to finish that they buy the books. So you have two income streams, the books and the keynote. But also and more importantly, I now created my own global leadership expedition going to the mountains, bringing at least 10 to 12, cxos CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, whatever See, x O's that they have, bring them to the mountains for exclusive four day expedition and retreat. And then hopefully, once they they enjoyed it, and they learn from it, hopefully, they invite me to their organization and cascade the entire program to the organization. And number three, maybe they like really the the idea, then I can upsell it to being coach, a step back leadership coach that to the organization to the CEO, whoever can can benefit from the from the from the idea so writing a book is something that they don't just see us as some you have a book and they are an authority because you can do a lot. A lot of businesses out of that particular content, especially if it is original and it is well researched. And it is it is interesting, it is unique.
James Taylor And I think I think it'll be interesting as well to track over time with like a CRM, for example, where you can see someone coming in, they attend that conference. Then you see them buying that book, and then you see them coming on the expedition and you see them going for the coaching and and that book which would maybe cost you know a few dollars to print and Give it is now resulting in thousands of dollars of sales. So you can actually see the return on that as well.
Lloyd Luna Exactly. I mean, I don't I don't see my biggest I am not commercially published author, I don't have a an international publisher that that carries any of my titles. so easily I have all the control on how how many copies I'm going to print, when I will print out so it's kinda I can easily give away a copy of the book and then it is to see that the, the see that I plant and then reap a lot of rewards from from that simple giving away of a copy,
James Taylor tell us about some of the tools that you use, what apps and tools you use as a writer that helps you do the work that you do.
Lloyd Luna Well, basically, I just I just use pages on Mac. And Ops, I also have this is a zoom h1, h1 h1 n recorder, very useful, very handy. USB event record for 40 hours. So zoom h1 n handy recorder. Pretty much about that I mean, a piece of a piece of paper or notebook and a pen?
James Taylor And what and what about in terms of if you would recommend a book to someone on on the craft of writing on how to write on the business of writing and maybe self publishing? What would that book be?
Lloyd Luna Um, I don't have the title yet. And writing if
James Taylor you're writing it
Lloyd Luna send me an update. Okay, so I don't I, the thing is the things that I know right now I didn't, I didn't even I didn't even get or buy a book. From from bookstores about self publishing or, or writing. It's a, I don't know, it's just natural tendency for me to want to write and then I navigated my own path. So I cannot really recommend which book to get. And that's why neither of us was big. I really thinking seriously considering writing about those two topics, how to write and the business as an author,
James Taylor they could they could there could be a book and it comes to buy time, watch this check, go and check out Lloyd's website who knows it might be a book in the offing as well. And so a final question for you, Lloyd, I want you to imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning. And you have to start from scratch as a writer. So no one knows you haven't got any books published? You have to start again. What would you do? How would you restart your writing career,
Lloyd Luna I am going to go back to my roots, I am going to go back and review my story. And I'm going to start with my stories. Because I think nowadays people are really interested about real story inspirational at that. And I cannot I cannot start immediately. If I were to do a research here and there. The closest thing I have in me is my story. And since I have the story to tell, I think it's the it's the first thing that I would want to write if I were to restart my writing journey.
James Taylor So we mentioned a couple of times here about your bookmaking workshop if you want to learn more about that and also more about you as well, where's the best place for them to go and do that?
James Taylor You got the.com bookmaking, workshop.com. And we'll put a link here below, so people can check that and if you want to just kind of connect with you personally learn about some of your other books and things. Where should they go to learn about that?
Lloyd Luna Well, all social media networks @Lloyd Luna
James Taylor at Lloyd learning find it we'll put all those links here as well. Lloyd, thank you so much for coming on today. It's always a pleasure speaking to wishing you all the best with the the bookmaking workshops you're doing, I've been seeing some of them online, they look like they're in beautiful locations. I'm very, I'm very envious. I'll have to come out to one of them at some point soon as well. But thanks so much, and all the best for the next book.
Lloyd Luna Come on here, James. Big Oliver, thank you so much. I'm honored, really privileged to be to be here and to be able to share just to contribute whatever inspiration and tactics and strategies they can use so that they can finally become a published author. really an honor for me to be here. Thank you so much for your time as well.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity. If you enjoyed the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief review. That would really help get the word out and raise the visibility of the Creative Life show.
There are four essential soft skills shaping the future of work. The good news is you already possess these skills. It’s just a matter of developing them so you are in the best position to take advantage of the transformation your company and country is going through.
Communication
The first of these skills is communication, the imparting or exchanging of ideas or information. For thousands of years the elites in society would be trained in oratory, the skill of public speaking. Being able to persuade or convince someone of your point of view verbally. Today you can access this kind of training by joining an organisation like Toastmasters or finding free public speaking training online.
However today you need to be able to communicate well not just verbally on a stage or in a boardroom but also on video, in email, or in short form messages. In the past the great communicators had to get their idea across through a speech or a TEDTalk. Today they need to be able to powerfully and succinctly communicate in a 60 second video or 140 characters. This requires clarity of communication.
Critical Thinking
The next skill we need to develop is our critical thinking. The philosopher Aristotle said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”. Critical thinking is about clearly reflecting and considering an idea, argument or piece of information from different perspectives.
One of the most common techniques for critical thinking is the Socratic Questioning method. Critical thinking is not the same as creative thinking but they are complementary as we’ll discover in a moment.
Collaboration
As we see the rise of remote working and the hybrid office model our third skill has had to evolve. That is the skill of collaboration, the act of working with others to produce or create something.
In the past, this collaboration may have taken the form of an in-person brainstorming meeting with your team or a chat over coffee with a collaborator. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in science, business or the arts have come about through inspired collaborations. Creativity is collaborative. Creativity is a team sport.
Today this collaboration more often takes the form of virtual meetings, brainwriting sessions or even augmented collaboration where humans and artificial intelligence collaborate to produce or create. Regardless of whether it is offline or online, or your collaborator is a human or a machine, as the African proverb says, “If you want to go far, go together”.
Creativity
But perhaps the most important soft skill for the 21st century is creativity, our ability to generate and develop new ideas. Because now more than ever we need fresh thinking. New ideas to solve our biggest problems whether that is climate change or poverty or any other that you’d care to mention. The world needs more creators.
Thankfully many governments and companies have woken up to the need to provide creativity training for their citizens and employees. Countries like Singapore added creativity training into their school system and companies like Visa, EY, Accenture, McDonalds and Red Hat have invited me as a creativity keynote speaker at their conferences or to provide creativity workshops and training to their people.
So think about your own work and life. If you did a quick back of the napkin assessment of your skill level for each of these skills; critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, what would they be? If you scored each out of 10 which of these have the low scores and you need to get training on?
If you want to learn more about creativity training head over to JamesTaylor.me or if communication skills training is what you need then check out SpeakersU.com.
Below is a machine-generated transcript and therefore the transcript may contain errors.
James Taylor Hi, I'm James Taylor business creativity and innovation keynote speaker. And this is the Creative Life, a show dedicated to you the creative. If you're looking for motivation, inspiration and advice, while at home at work or on your daily commute, then this show is for you. Each episode brings you a successful creative, whether that's an author, musician, entrepreneur, perform a designer, or a thought leader. They'll share with you their journey, their successes, their failures, their creative process, and much much more. You'll find Show Notes for this episode as well as free training on creativity over at Jamestaylor.me. Enjoy this episode.
Hi, it's James Taylor here. Today's episode was first aired as part of International Authors Summit. This inspiring virtual summit reveals the secrets of making marketing and monetizing a best selling book. If you would like to access the full video version as well as in depth sessions with over 40 Best Selling authors that I've got a very special offer for you just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit. Yeah, that's right. Over 40 New York Times and Amazon best selling authors, book editors, agents and publishers, sharing their insights, strategies and tactics on how to write and market your first or next best sellers. So just go to InternationalAuthorsSummit.com, but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted to be joined by Jane Anderson. Jean Anderson is an author and expert on leadership and communications with over 20 years experience in personal branding. She has worked with over 50,000 people on building more trust and influence in their businesses and brands. Her clients include Virgin Australia, Lego IKEA, Rio, Tinto and origin energy, and she is on faculty in thought leaders Business School mentoring some of Australia's leading experts in their field. Jane's blog was recently voted in the top 10 branding blogs in Australia and the top 30 branding gurus globally. Jane is the author of five books, including her latest expert to influencer 12 key skills to attract new clients, increase sales, and leverage your personal brand to become an industry leader. It's my great pleasure to have Jean with us today. So welcome, Jane,
Jane Anderson I thank you. It's so exciting to work with you again. I feel like you're like my long was buddy and I thought we could play again. I'm getting this. I thank you for having
James Taylor we're on the opposite ends of the world. You're in your winter. I'm in my summer here just now. But I always love catching up because you have so I love the energy that you put into everything that you do as well. So I have to ask, first of all, what's going on in your world? What are you currently working on?
Jane Anderson Yeah, thank you so. So I've just come off a quarter, it's kind of interesting. I have a program that I run this quarter, I do a lot of work on influence and persuasion and help people in this quarter I've just been working with doctors to get onto specialist training programs. So if they're wanting to get on to, you know, become a dermatologist or a surgeon, a vascular surgeon. You do like obstetrics and gynecology. So we have really extremely difficult processes to go through in that. So I've come off a quarter of seven days a week coaching doctors pretty much. So normally this time I'm hidden in a hotel and just in the fetal position going. Okay, so But, but few times I know it's all right. So I normally am recovering in a hotel at the beach for a few days. But no, I said no. That the James James wants to catch up with you out there, of course. Absolutely.
James Taylor Well, that's so that's okay. I was just reading your book last week. And as you recommended someone last week did the one that you wrote on LinkedIn using LinkedIn? I think that's such an underused platform. I mean, it gets none of the glamour of Facebook and Instagram. Yet when I look at it, so you know, our business, where does the social networks really bring in the business of bringing sales is like number one of the networks? So why why is it the Why is it the ugly? Baby, the ugly sister of the of the social networks
Jane Anderson buy meat and potatoes, isn't it? And so yeah, it's it's a funny kind of way I think it is more common in some ways was that thing? I suppose basic. It is also a little bit more complex than some of the other sides. It's a very closed network. Whereas if you look like look at something like say Instagram, Instagram is a very open network as in, if I was trying to find something, or someone like you, like if I was typing in, you know, book writing coach in Instagram, I'll just get millions of people turn up in that search. Whereas in LinkedIn, if I was looking for someone like that the only people who are going to turn up are people I'm connected to. So it's a different kind of approach. And I think my experience has been I think, I love LinkedIn. I think Everyone's probably got a bit of a love hate relationship with it. You know, they love it because they think they can see all this opportunity in there. But then they go to try and work it out and I get ours, it's hard. I can't work, how to make this work. So I think in some ways, I had the good fortune of going visiting LinkedIn, Ted office in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And you know, they really are incredible now that Microsoft have taken over, I think they've become more commercial. But I think there's still a lot of opportunity to simplify it even more to help people understand, well, you know, your profile needs to be a marketing document, not an obituary. Some of those things, I think there's still still a little way to go in helping people to put their best foot forward and realize that it's actually a marketing document that is available 24 seven that can stand out and help you. As opposed to most people will say to me, oh, well, I've set up my profile, and I haven't got anything from it. I will. Have you actually initiated a conversation? Have you started anything? Oh, no, I'm just waiting for everyone to turn up and want my help.
James Taylor But it's such a great one. I was thinking, looking at your book last week, actually, I was thinking for an author who isn't that process of trying to find in an agent or literary agent or something about who might be the right publisher for the for what they were doing, or when they're actually kind of getting ready to actually go out and market and put and promote the book as well. Is is a really untapped? I think, by you know, by that group. Because it's, you don't hear so many older you hear more maybe business nonfiction authors, but authors more generally, you don't hear them talking about LinkedIn so much as a platform?
Jane Anderson No, no, there's some and, you know, there's so much opportunity with it. And it's not it, people think it's noisy, but it's actually not very noisy. So, you know, turn my business around, my story was I lost about 80% of my business overnight, here in Queensland, the state that I mean, in, in Australia, we have a volatile government in the state that I'm in and that they changed, change premiers, like they change their underwear, and that has an impact on businesses. And I lost about 80% of my my business. And so LinkedIn was the tool that helped me to shift from being so susceptible to local market challenges to becoming more global. So you know, without it, you know, it, there's, there's no way I would have been able to get where I got today. And I did it as a result of Actually, I lost about $30,000 in AdWords and SEO and because I just really didn't know what I was doing. But LinkedIn, I was writing profiles for job seekers and, and get helping them get jobs. And at the time, I thought, well, surely I can help people, maybe if I'm helping all these people, they're getting their jobs, they're getting in front of all these people maybe or use it for sales and see how that works. And and it worked. So it wasn't that I consciously did it was actually just by pure need to get my business back on track.
James Taylor Now. That's one of your books. And if you haven't, you have a number of books and including this, this leads to an expert influencer, who, as you were kind of moving into believing you can speak and you want to move into the kind of author getting your books, your writing out there. Who were those mentors, or maybe the people, either you personally, you had a relationship with personally, or people you looked at from afar and said, that's the kind of author that I want to become that's that's maybe something about their style, or how the, you know, or how they they can have formats of their book. Who were those people?
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah, I think it's probably been a few things I Well, when a big turning point in my life was joining thought leaders business school, and I know you've had spoken with Peter Cook in the past. And so Peter Cook is the CEO of thought leaders Business School. And, you know, what I learned from working with them was that my, my ability that I did have some good ideas and good like, hey, it was just a matter of really being taught how to do it. So that was probably the first first part was I remember, actually, I remember one day that I was working with Matt and, and Pedro and, and Matt said, Well, hold on, why don't you go and have a look, you've written all these blogs, go and have a look at your blogs and come back and tell me what your word count is if you put all those into a document. So off I went, and that night, I pulled it together. And I remember going and seeing him the next day, we're on a training course. And I said, Matt, I've got 8000 words. I can't believe that simile guy actually done a lot of the work. It's a you know, you've actually now just got to stop look at how you package this up. And it had never even occurred to me. I thought you had to write blogs and Okay, now you got to write a book. And so I was already doing the work. I just hadn't seen it through the lens of using it for a book. So I think that was the first part then. But there's always been writers that I've always really admired and but one of the books that I really like is is Ryan Holiday holidays. perennial seller.
James Taylor Yeah, that's a great.
Jane Anderson It's such a great book. And I go back and read it so many times, you know, particularly the work, you know, it's working with people like Robert Greene and creating power. And, you know, they're just iconic books. And you just go well. So I think my experience has been working, creating a book that's commercially smart, that will help me to work with the programs and what I'm trying to deliver to help people. And then you look, I'm always inspired, though, by those iconic books, like, the ones that, you know, they, they've worked with authors to create, and I've got that, you know, think once, but just use it forever.
James Taylor Yeah. And I think that that's actually quite a hard thing to do to get, you know, to get that, right. That classic, you know, create that classic book, but also because you're you're using as a party as a vehicle to get on stages and speak and, and that where were those audiences often want real? They want real relevance? What's happening now? How is this being played now? So have you found a way to, to kind of have those things coexist? Or do you really write the book saying, okay, the examples, I'm going to use the, I wouldn't need them to be around forever? Or I'd use it. Okay. I'm just going to do this. every couple of years. I know, in the back of my head, I'm gonna have to update.
Jane Anderson Yeah, it's funny you say that, because the LinkedIn book that I wrote Connect, which is, um, I don't know if it's helpful for that this one. So this one, it was out of date, pretty much the day I wrote, it went to the publisher. I, oh, they don't do that anymore. I go, I've written a chapter on that. And so I, the bulk of it is, you know, 99.9% of it is still relevant. But But yes, so I know that that needs to be updated. But then there's others that I give an expert to implement to this, it might it probably will need some tweaks. Like you said, I might have to do some updating in a couple of years. But I deliberately, you know, learnt that lesson a little bit with Kinect Kinect is still really good, still super relevant. But there's, you know, just the screen grabs look a little bit different, but the principles is still the same. But the next bit to influencer? Yeah, I was far more mindful, after reading the perennial seller to say, actually, if I'm running a course, or a coaching program, that's when I can tweak what I'm saying. But the content that goes in that book, I need to make sure that that's relevant for a long time.
James Taylor Now you work with this idea of experts to influence taking people with all this knowledge, whatever their field is, whether it's the doctors, or whether they're their marketing specialists, whatever the topic is, and helping them become influenced. And so when it comes to the writing, helping them become authors and kind of get their message out that way. I'm imagining a difficult one for them as they have so much information in their head. It's like, what is the first book? What is the topic of the first book? How do I decide because they could write probably 10 different books? You know, any any ideas in terms of how you can identify what is that lead Domino? What is the first one you're going to write?
Jane Anderson It's a great question. So what I do is I look at, I look at them with their, with their practice, or their business of what do they actually selling at the moment? What do they know that is working? So because it's risky to write a book, based on something new that you don't have any evidence of it, you know, that of the market wanting something like that. So, so one of the things I look at, typically look at two types of books, a book that is relevant for their business or their practice overall. So for example, let's say they're a resilience expert, then we'll say, okay, there's a book called, let's say, you as the, you know, rock your resilience or whatever it might be. And that that's a book that can take you to any stage any audience, but it but it's not narrow on market. So it might be the 10 things to help you to become more resilient in life. Now that can go to sales teams, you can speak at a change management conference, you can speak on leadership, you can apply that to so many things. And that's a it's a book for your entire business. But sometimes, there's something in their business that's really unique. So, for example, like with the we were talking a bit about doctors, so I have a doctor's program, which is where I coach doctors to get on a specialist program. So I've written a much thinner book. So this is a thin book, it's called confidence, how to sell yourself in medical interviews, get on to your chosen specialty program, have your preparation time and double your impact. So now something like that is I haven't had to go. It's that's not what my entire business is about. But that was a commercially smart book to write because that particular program I was I'd been delivering for 10 years. And I just hadn't actually written a book on it. And that book then essentially doubled the revenue that came in with that program, just simply and it's only 25,000 Words, were something like that is 45,000 words,
James Taylor that's a really smart one, because then that means it let's say, as a speaker or as a trainer, you can then go to that this in the medical industry and say, you know, I wrote the book on me how you know that it's we've had another guest, we're just talking about how often you get into dominance in an area because you're you're good at something one area and good at another. And it's the crossover of those two, those two things, and where no one else is going for and gives you a USP. So that's an really interesting USP, because you obviously know, from the marketing positioning side, but then you also understand what the challenges are for those people that can have going for those types of roles.
Jane Anderson Absolutely. And there's only 150 people in that market every year. So I know that out of those 150 people, it's likely that I get about 90, who I talked to, and then ultimately ended up working with about 20. So, so it's a really small market, but a highly commercial one, as well as they they're in a lot of pain, I need a lot of help, but they are not a doctor. I trust doctors, I don't trust a lot of people. So I had to put something to show, you know, I can help you. I know I'm not a doctor, I haven't got a PhD or anything. But I recognize I can help you get on to your program. So it was really a positioning tool to say, you know, here's what, here's what she talks about. I had an orthopedic surgeon contact me last year, actually a very, very large shoe because he'd spent three years trying to apply and he just wasn't getting on highly stressed and very anxious because he couldn't get on to orthopedics. This year, I worked with him. So these people that booked in for this program, I work with them they book in a year in advance for me to work with him. And because it's so competitive, and I have there's only one of me. And in his case, I have him in, I had probably five coaching sessions with him to help him hit by the end of every session, he was so emotional, and in tears. This is an orthopedic surgeon. They're not exactly the most emotional people usually. But in his case, he just said I cannot thank you enough. If you didn't write this book, I would have no idea that this is what I was meant to be doing. No one tells you this. So he you know, he always says to me, you're on like he says, When you come to my city, can you can you please ring me Can you please like you have to come meet my family. And you know, it's a it's life changing. If you can create something like that, where there's no education out there on it, there's no one who can translate what the problems are and what they might be experiencing. It don't don't have to have a massive market.
James Taylor Yeah, but I'm guessing as well, that model works really well when it comes to independent publishing and also self publishing, because a publisher would if you went to a publisher and say, you know, the total market for this book is 150 people, unless it's an academic book where that's maybe considered okay. Most publishers are going to say I'm sorry, but you can do that you can write those those relatively thin volumes, I really targeted that audience. And it works. Because you know, that is the tip of the spear, you're going to bring in so much other business on the back end.
Jane Anderson That's exactly right. Even a friend of mine, Colin Ellis wrote a book on how to recruit a project manager. But that's, you know, but there's not that many people in that in mind. There's a lot of project managers or people who recruit project managers. That's a real, it's a really commercially smart book to write. It's actually I think it's about half the size of that. So it's not a very big book, but it's a way to be able to put a stake in the ground and say, Well, I understand I can help you. And it's commercially smart. We're not looking to put it on a shelf in bookstores or anything like that. It's not going to be a New York Times bestseller, that's for sure. But it is something that's commercially smart for him to do. And I
James Taylor think I've heard I can't remember the name of the author now. But there is another author I've heard of who he wrote his, his main book is Kiss me, which is 220 page version, let's say on his main topic, he speaks on relatively broad, you know, pretty broad and examples he gave. And then he essentially said, he, every year he kind of took the he wrote the same book for a particular industry. So I can what his topic was now, but let's see if it was innovation. You know, it was innovation for marketers innovation, and that was that you just go off to all the conferences and be able to comment and say, Hey, I wrote the book on innovation for marketing. Would you like me to come speak at your marketing conference? And he said, It was such a powerful way, because the you've obviously taken the time to really understand what the challenges were in that in that industry, you've gone to writing the book for it. And he said, Actually, it's not that much harder work, because it's, it's kind of this a lot of the key strategies were the same. It was just in terms of the application. We had to talk about what was going to be different.
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah, exactly. There's so much leverage one have written a book, you know, it's in those specific markets. And, you know, for self publishing, you can even tailor that for, you know, there's so much quick turnaround on things. And to tailor something, you know, you can do it just for an organization, but they brand on it do the foreword from the CEO, you know, like, there's so many options now, if you've just got if you've got a great book like that it's you're spot on is how can we just tweak it maybe for that particular market? And, you know, it's got the same content, it's just highly leveraged, but change some of the examples, it's still super relevant. So you really put a good stake in the ground, then for sure. So can you talk us through with some strategies for confer writing and completing a commercially smart book in in less than 90 days, because, because the thing I always amazes me about you, is lots of people that can talk, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, but you execute and you make stuff happen, and relatively quickly. So can you talk about like the strategies that you go through to kind of writing those books again, there's books out there. Yeah. So I have a confession to make James. So you know, the first book, The first book I wrote was this one, which was called impact, which was around how to build your personal brand. And I've never written a book before. And so I decided to get a writing coach. Now the problem was, was that my writing coach really liked writing? And I don't. So I reckon one of the first things that that you want to do, is you want to know, are you a speaker? Who writes or are you a writer who speaks? And so in my case, I'm a I'm a speaker, who writes, I'm not a fast writer, I can speak much faster than I can write. Some people have got so so beautiful, eloquent, eloquent writing, and that's just not me, I have to speak and then I forget it out. So I, so impact took me nine months to write. Because I was like, Oh, my God, this is so every other book I've written since took 90 days, because I went through the pain of that I was like, This is never happening again, in with this code. And go does it make you got some hacks or something like I'm a bit of a productivity guru, like, I've just spent five years as a productivity expert in, and consultants. So I've got a bit of obsession around that. I was like, this is really painful. So there were a couple of things that, that I, I've found that I've been really useful to, to do that number one, or probably three things, number one, was that little bit of planning, like, you know, deciding what is the book actually designed to sell and writing around that purpose. And the next thing was I created an app, I might have told, mentioned it in the in the speaker somebody did, but an app called memo mailer. So memo mailer is an app I've created, and it's on Google Play, and it's on iTunes. And it, the idea behind it, because I don't know about you, but you find when you're writing, you think of good ideas or things that could go in chapters in the lead up to building and planning the book. And I've found with experts and people who are, you know, writing books is they have great ideas, but they just come along at really bad times. And so yeah, so idea with memo mailer, if you go on, you'll see the tapes of reviews from speakers, but you just hold down a button on it and say, Oh, I need to do a chapter on blah, or if you think of a story or whatever. And it just sends yourself all the information in the content of what you're thinking it goes straight to your inbox. So I do a lot of memo mail type work. So it's, it's capturing the recording of me saying it. So if you've got stories, you're finding research, the idea is to make sure you've got homes and start to capture all those things on the run. And so send them to yourself and then file them. So that's the first thing so that when it comes to writing,
James Taylor and that's that's important, especially if you send them screen, being a speaker who writes or a writer who speaks, if you're a speaker, you're an adjunct I'm going to is more generally into performer because I think also applies to performance as well as I know, performance is they're much more comfortable in doing something like that hitting that record, just speaking into their phone or singing it into the phone as a song. And doing it that way rather than sitting down and writing out. And, you know, and because our brains work that way, if you're if you're more of a performer, Speaker type of person.
Jane Anderson Yes, absolutely. So if you can, the first thing I do is make sure I've got home set up for like I'm thinking about writing this book and have a home in my inbox. So in my inbox in my emails, is I'll have the folder set up for that book. And so as I think of things will come across things that I'm capturing in memo mailer, or emailing them to myself is to set up a file so that all those things are going in there. Without a home for things everything kind of goes a bit messy. So the one is capturing ideas Then what from that was was planning the book and starting to capture? Okay, well, what are what are the stories? What are the points? What's the research that goes with each of these pieces. And then what I do is I go and hide in a hotel room for four days. And it's usually winter at the beach. Yeah, so enough, it's too cold for me to go out for a swim. So I have to sit and look at the beach. I can't get distracted, I can watch the waves. And it's a beautiful view. But I'm not tempted to go out and go and swim, which is what I want to do, but I can't, it's too cold. So it forces me to sit down and, and, but what I do is in the hotel room, I take off all the artwork off the walls. And I think the cleaners come in, what is this woman done this room. And what I do is I then start to map the books, I take blue tack, and and you know, so each of those pieces of IP, or each of the chapters, and then sub chapters based on whatever that research and study and story that goes with each of those. I've mapped them and put them across the entire walls of the hotel. And then I go back and grab my phone, and I grab rev.com I'm sure lots of people, you're in red for any of those apps. So I just stand there with my phone and read out every single one of those those documents. And so if I've done all the planning, right, I can get it, I can get the book back in, you know, four days, like I'll have Sorry, I can have all the content out, then that comes back through rave and then I'll just send it to the copy editor. And then I cleaned it all up so I actually don't even touch it.
James Taylor Wow, that's a really injured like speaker isn't you can speak to right. Yeah, I love and actually what you said about the going to the hotel, and people would think I have some man idea. But actually, my wife and I met also JK Rowling recently and event of Harry Potter digital, the Harry Potter movies, books. And she does the same thing. And she she goes and books into hotels called the Balmoral hotel, which is in Edinburgh and the main fee. And she will, she doesn't do the that particular stage in terms of mapping. But there's a period of time, which is very, very important for just to get stuff done. Otherwise other things can crowd out. And she just goes to, you know, probably doesn't pick up the phone, nothing distraction and go shopping website. She just like, spends that week there getting that stuff done. And it's just like everything else is secondary.
Jane Anderson Yeah, that's an old phones are off. Everything's off no distractions, no phone calls, like, you know, I might have one call into maybe my partner mark at home. But that'll be bad. So yeah, it's the way to go. That's for sure. But it takes a little bit of planning to make the most of it so that you're not leaving the hotel room. Six months later, I've been going home.
James Taylor So you see, you've got that you've done the copy editing that's come back, you've obviously you're working with your you know, designers and when you kind of go to that next stage, are you putting out directly through Amazon? You're working directly with Amazon to kind of put it out or do you go through a third party in terms of distribution?
Jane Anderson So yeah, I go to so it'll come back from the copy editor, proofreader, like if it's all done, types it everything, then I have a great support person who I've connected with, she's actually a do self publishing. And I don't touch any of the Amazon or you know, the CreateSpace or Ingram spark or whatever, she's the guru of all that I gave up trying to work out all the all the formatting and I feel like it's surely there's somebody who understands this better than me. So, so yeah, she's been wonderful. So she's in Melbourne. And so I just send the files to her and she just load everything up sorts out Amazon sorts out everything. And so I don't I don't actually even touch very much of the book at all.
James Taylor Is that is that so is that when it comes out until they see an Amazon? Is it come out under under their publishing company? Or does it come out into something you've you've named
Jane Anderson it it comes under self publishing so it'll say that they've done the publishing but I but yeah, so it's so essentially self published but it's got her her branding to say that they've done the printing but that's about it.
James Taylor She's also got like a hybrid like a hybrid of of this the self publishing and the more traditional publishing where you'll have someone that is taking care of doing doing the whole thing.
Jane Anderson Yeah, that's right. So I do everything she just really hits print and loads it into Amazon. And that's it. And then
James Taylor so you've you've got your book, you're ready to rock and roll get it out to the world start talking to people about it. What is what is the what is it marketing campaign for when you're releasing a book, like and after Having done a number of books now, what is that that one thing that you have found just works is just like the it's just you, you must have this as part of your marketing campaign.
Jane Anderson Okay, this is my biggest secret you can't tell anyone, James, okay.
James Taylor It's just me, you and a couple of 10s of thousand people, that's all.
Jane Anderson This is by far, the number one thing that changed my my world changed, you know, just the way they work with books and what I do with all my clients. So the first thing I say is get your book cover. Not so I work off a 90 day project. Like I'll say a book is a 90 day project. And I'll say that we do the cover first. And so even if you have to change it at the last minute is fine. But do the cover first. And then put that cover everywhere. So put on the website, say that it's coming. You know, it's put it in your newsletters, have it in all your social media have it in your presentations, it scares the hell out of you For starters, so it makes you write it. The second thing is, is that it generates positioning and it generates the conversation. So particularly if your book now everybody's a bit different, like you say like some people actually, my intention is not necessarily to sell books, my intention is to sell my programs, my books are the way that show people that I can help them and understand their challenges. So if you're coming from that space, is that the book cover suddenly creates the positioning and a visual artifact that even though the book isn't written, it opens up a conversation with people that Oh, wow. And then suddenly you're known for that. So with Connect, when I wrote Connect, I put the cover up 90 days before the impact. I didn't do it until very last minute and then it like suddenly you've got this book and I Oh, wow. Now I have to go out and have these conversations. With Connect. When I wrote connect the budget that I had planned on income for the year, I put the cover out and I'd sold that entire budget within three months. And I didn't even have the book back yet.
James Taylor That's that's an that's a really interesting, this idea of doing the book cover First, we actually had another guest Ron Kaufman who's speaking from based in Singapore. And Ron, he does exactly the same thing. He said, He's a very visual person, he said that I need to have that book to see what it feels like, you know, mentally and, and then one of our other guests, David Allen wrote getting things done, he actually rates the reviews, like almost like he doesn't erase the reviews first, including who the review is what the publication is, he says I need to have that visual thing going ahead and kind of set the setting it up in that way. So So I love this idea. I love this idea of kind of getting, you're kind of using from a marketing standpoint, because you say your book is not if you sell that copies, great of a book, but actually it's not your primary revenue stream that comes in it's like it's a positioning statement is showing that you're you are the expert in the market as well. And when you come to like doing book design, because that's a huge area in its own, do you go with like a 19 designs? Or do you have someone that you tend to you like working with,
Jane Anderson so I have the copy editor I work with is also a graphic designer. So sometimes just depending on if I might get her to do a design, and I'll see what it looks like. And then maybe I might go back over to 99 designs and maybe see what comes through there. And so I don't get a blank to not get too hung up or too prescriptive on what I think the covers gonna look like I'm very open to other people's creativity and ideas because people think of stuff I would never think of. So, so I like I really like 99 designs, I think they they're fantastic. And the ideas people have are just great. So they're a good investment, I do tend to even for clients I'm working with, I encourage them to get the more expensive option in 99 designs, I think it's worth 1300 dollars Australian or something like that, particularly if they've got a book that's, you know, these say, Well, this is the return on this cover is going to be possibly, you know, million dollar plus. So 1300 dollars is not that much different than $900. It's like compared to the second option. So I go invest as much as you can to get as many options as you can and you want it to be an absolutely cracking cover. Because it's not about a piece of paper on top of a book. Yeah, it's actually about what you're doing with the book and what it's designed to position you for. So we're going to cover is the best investment if you can spend the money on that it's worth it.
James Taylor No, no, because you went back to the thought leaders Business School. You talk about this idea of clusters and doing 90 day projects is very much a part of that as well. So when you're when you're doing your book is are you trying to like kind of Ida write publish the book all within 90 days, or do you like say 90 days for the writing part. And then you have another 90 days period for the for the marketing and the promotion?
Jane Anderson Yeah, book in hand, by the end of 90 days, marketing will. So if you said, Okay, we've got three quarters here on the side, I'll go left to right from your side, I'll be on the stage. So I'm a new speaker, we picked me up on that. But I'm on stage left. And so if you said sequentially, so if you're working like you've got a quarter, there's one quarter here, one quarter here one quarter. So this quarter would be get the cover out and just get it moving. Like just just get it visible everywhere. So that's that quarter. And then, in this quarter, start writing. So you I mean, you'll be percolating ideas, and you'll be okay, I think I'm on the Trekkie, but in this quarter is getting write it all down. And by the stage of cover should be out floating around anyway. But 90 days to get in and get it done. And then the following 90 days is okay, who does that book now need to go out to, to work to do the programs? Because if it's being used for training programs, work, all that good stuff, then then marketing campaign, that marketing campaign for the programs you're selling, not necessarily to sell books? Yeah,
James Taylor if that makes sense. It's kind of getting out into into the hands of prospective clients, you know, and and using it for the pillars purposes and media opportunities, podcasts, those kind of things. That's it. Yep. Spot on. Very cool. Very cool. And as you've been writing all these books, has it been a key aha moment, a lightbulb moment? A time when you go? Okay, this is, this is maybe the direction I want to go with my writing, or this is what writing I want writing to do for me and publishing to do for me?
Jane Anderson That's a really good question. It's been an interest. I think, it's really been interesting, because it's, it's one of those things, I don't know if you found this, but when you when you're writing is that each book leads to sort of the next activity. So when I say that you talked a little bit before about categories of people. So you put people in if there's a category of a speaker or writer, and then you bring in this other category in the intersection of those two things, create a dominant, and in that sort of positioning, so what I learned that's been a surprise is sorry, right, impact first, and then sort of people kind of got what I was doing, like they said, Yeah, okay, so you do personal branding, and I kind of get this impact thing. And already Oh, then when I work Connect, then they went on now we get what you do. So they really started to connect it with our so you work at the intersection of positioning marketing as well as digital. Yeah, yeah. I. So that was probably if there was a surprise, and something I didn't expect, but was was interesting and, and worked well, was now the intersection of all my books, but particularly those two was when I went, oh, wow, people now really get me. So that was kind of interesting.
James Taylor You talked about that process of going going to hotel for days, and how you you're capturing ideas all the time as well. But you're also publishing blog posts, you're publishing things on LinkedIn as well. So what is your general ritual when it comes to to writing?
Jane Anderson Yeah, number one is capturing ideas like without that. So that was why I made that up. Then the second thing is time allocated as a habit and routine in the calendar as per David Allen. And so I typically have a Friday morning, where I'll have, you know, maybe a couple of hours where I will go back to those ideas, and then start to catalogue them, and then decide which one that I'm going to work with. So create that piece of IP. So for example, the one that I did recently was how to increase the open rates in your newsletters. So that was an idea that as a result of working with a client, and so I captured the idea but I knew I had time allocated next Friday or the you know, the following Friday to sit down and, and capture that and write it out and get the idea out from that, then having that then that piece of content, then also then moves over into my book folder. So then, okay, where does that belong? So and I might not know just yet but I make sure I get that piece of contents going out in a newsletter, but then we go essentially copy paste. Okay, that now goes into the book folder as well to make sure that that's gone into a book. I may not know what the next book is going to be just yet, but at least I've got a folder. And I know what I also have a spreadsheet of all the pieces of IP that I've got, they're all catalogued and numbered. And so on the spreadsheet, we have a columns that run across. So has it gone on a blog? Has it gone in a newsletter? Has it gone on a podcast? Has it gone on LinkedIn? You know, all those and then one of the columns is book, and has that piece of IP gone in a book. And so in which case, we'll label it will say what book it has gone in? And then, then I know then I can go back and anything that hasn't gone in a book, is there anything I can use here in this new book I'm planning to write
James Taylor I think one of the other really, on that note on this, but I love the idea of the spreadsheets, we have something similar that we do as well, because we quickly figured out we would, we would create some piece of intellectual property, and we'd only use it in one thing like a blog post, like why are we not repurposing this because this is going to be seen by such a small number of people, if you have this idea, and you do like a tweet type thing about it, like a minuscule number of people gonna be able to see it. So no, it totally does. Business School, you you're talking about this idea, and Matt and Pete to this idea of Pink Sheets. And but we're just kind of finding ways to kind of get all those ideas out of your head into into intellectual, some kind of intellectual property that you can have sitting in front of you, once you get into say, Okay, how do I want to get this out into the world and that actually, I think that's a, it's a, it's something I've told loads of people about this idea. And I've recommended thought leaders business school to a whole bunch of different people. And I think if the if the if the only thing you get from growing somebody is, you talked about Pink Sheets is also the green sheet. So you to talk about as well, that's all the because it's just it's such a powerful, but simple, simple concept in terms of getting these ideas out in your head. And then they can use them for a book, you know, podcast episodes, blog posts, whatever they use as our unit one.
Jane Anderson Oh, and absolutely. So when I was talking about the hotel before, you know, the pieces of paper that I put on the wall are all Pink Sheets. So I just end there and read out my Pink Sheets. And the other thing is also for those, you know, if you've got some support team members, is to teaching support staff. So I coach a lot of experts in their business managers or their support staff, their API's, on how to fill out that IP, or how to chase up parts of that IP, so that they can just keep going and creating it. So though they might have, I don't know what the story is, can you find me a story that's related to how to do blah,
James Taylor yeah, or so part of it is, when you're at a point, if you're at a point where you've got support team is, then the next step is to how do I start to build the capability of my support team to help them so that if I'm capturing the ideas as we're going, then that speeds the process up even faster is so when I when I train the support teams, that's when we really start to see some traction, that's pretty incredible. And I think I've seen that with CO writers writing on books together where they didn't have, they wouldn't call it Pink Sheets, but they'll they'll do something where one person is going out, walkers is very good at coming up with the kind of original ideas around something, they're probably very good at coming up with the metaphors that relate to that idea and how to relate that just to common usage. But maybe they're not so good at the researching, finding the stories to support the idea of finding the research underneath it to support the idea. So the other person is tasked with doing that, because that's the key skill so you can divide and conquer. When can I come up with this? And I love the idea of using your support team to go out and find those stories or fill in the blanks there.
Jane Anderson Yes. Yeah. You know, there's often you don't have to always carry so much of the load yourself. If you have got those people around you. But you know, there's so many things like air Tasker and Upwork. Like there's so many people around now that can help you with some of these things. So, you know, you don't have to battle alone. There's people out there are really good at it and who can make and help and make it all come together. Now, you
James Taylor mentioned the memo Mila, are there any tool, other tools that you use to help you in your your writing,
Jane Anderson I have these Scrivener and things like that before and I'm sure you probably had a few people talk to that I didn't start on Scrivener. And but since I've been using rev and because they come back in Word documents, I've since moved over to that distance. I found I haven't had to use Scrivener as such, but it is a good place to start. And it's it's motivating because you see the numbers go up. Like oh, good, you know, five words. So I think between between those two things, particularly those I think, yeah, definitely memo mail or rev.com. And you know, getting the like pink sheets for sure if you can learn how to do Pink Sheets and if you look at the thought leaders book, there's some information in in how we get IP out and how we get it out fast. I think also having a good copy editor, proofreader who you work well with like Lauren, who helps me She just understands how I work so i'm i'm super hands off on voice on but hands off. So So I can read through, I can update I've got great proofreaders and people around me who have those skills and are much faster at it than me. So yeah, if you can get someone like that is really good. And if you could recommend one
James Taylor book to someone that's watching listening to this just now it could be on the craft of writing or it could be on the business of writing or how did you know generally how all this stuff fits together some some of the ideas we'll be speaking about today, not one of your own books, but someone else's. But what what would that book be?
Jane Anderson So latest business skills? how to how to the latest practice? Definitely, it what there's life before Pink Sheets and life after Pink Sheets. That's a loss changing Nyah if there was anything to say, you know, you there's so many other great books around for sure. Like Julie Cameron's work on
James Taylor the car yet?
Jane Anderson Yeah, this way. And, you know, there's all those other fantastic creativity books in the in the, what is it, the War of Art, and all those, they're all all fantastic. But if you had to say what's been the things life changing, it's Yeah, the the work that Matt's done on the latest practice, for sure
James Taylor is great, because it's a great book. So I want you to final question for you, I want you to imagine you woke up tomorrow morning, and you had to start from scratch as an author. So I'm gonna scrub all your LinkedIn profiles, no one knows who you are, you have no connections, you your your contacts list is disappeared. But you know, you want to get that first book out there or get a book out there. What would you do? How would you restart things as an author?
Jane Anderson How would I restart? That's a great question. I would restart, I would always start with water. What is the purpose of what what do you use? What are you selling? But what if what if you want to sell something? What do you want to deliver? What do you want to work with? What do you want to sell to? Or? Like? Is it a coaching program? is a mentoring program? Is it a keynote? And then deciding from there? What is it that you do best? What do you love doing that's commercially smart that people will pay for? And write that book? And I would, I would definitely start, start there. I think I got that some clients, sometimes it's, you know, you can write a book, but it's not necessarily. It's a book based on your past, not your future. So it's knowing that your book is going to create your future. So you might know a lot about spreadsheets, but maybe they don't float your boat, maybe what floats your boat is that is actually about, you know, inspiring people using new sushi cooking techniques. I don't know.
James Taylor That's good. I like that.
Jane Anderson So, you know, just be mindful that whatever you're going to write about is that's going to create your future. So if you don't particularly enjoy something, then you know, or it's not commercially smart. That's what you're going to be doing for the next period of time. So it's just taking the time to really think about what do I want my future to look like? Because the book will create the future.
James Taylor And if people want to learn about you more generally reach out to you maybe directly, what's the best way for them to do that?
Jane Anderson Yeah. Welcome to I'm always on my platform. So I'm on LinkedIn, and Instagram and Facebook. And so wherever you look around on on social media, you'll find me. So I'm more than happy to connect and answer any questions if people want to reach out. That's fine.
James Taylor Well, Jane is, as always, as always a pleasure speaking to you learning about what you're up to. And thank you so much for sharing your insights in terms of writing and being an author. And I look forward to hopefully we'll be sharing the stage at some point together in the future.
Jane Anderson Yeah, I hope so. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
James Taylor If you're interested in living a more creative life, then I'd love to invite you to join me as I share some of the most successful strategies and techniques that high performing creatives use. I put them all together in a free downloadable ebook that you can get by going to jamestaylor.me. That's jamestaylor.me. To get your free downloadable ebook on creativity.
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